Our Trip to Peru -- Over the Top

The third day of the hike was, without doubt, one of the most challenging days either of us has ever faced. It began poorly, the night before, when Katy seemed to fall ill. She was suffering from pretty severe sinus pain that we feared was brought on by the altitude and we worried that she would not be able to climb at all. After a phone-call diagnosis by a Peruvian doctor some pain medications and antibiotics were prescribed and we decided to forge ahead.

The first quarter of the day was a steady uphill that seemed to portend well. But then we hit the "Seven Serpents" -- a series of 14 switchbacks that went almost vertically up a steep wall from roughly 14,000 to 15,000 feet. Part of the way up, Katy climbed onto a burro to get to the top. Paul, meanwhile, was suffering shortness of breath and, candidly, a healthy helping of panic at what he was experiencing. The next 45 minutes seemed like an eternity.

Eventually, we made it up the Serpents and then had a well deserved rest. As you can see from this photo, Paul was not particularly happy at this point. But at least we had made it.

From there it was a relatively short hike (maybe a mile and only 300 more feet up) to the top of the Salkantay pass. There we paused for a well-deserved second rest and some good photos. As you can see, the pass itself is right in the shadow of Mt. Salkantay. The peak behind us is up around 20,000 feet and has been climbed only twice in history (at least as far as anyone knows). To have gotten so close to it was exceedingly difficult and rewarding -- but also amazingly unnerving and challenging.

And so we began a long downhill slog. We still had more than 4 hours to go to the next lodge (overall hike time on this day was 9 hours) and after about 2 hours we stopped for lunch. The most amazing thing happened -- lunch was a hot lunch served in a tent that had been erected for that purpose. Our cook had left the morning lodge after serving us breakfast and literally run ahead of us to set up for lunch. Never had a simple meal tasted so fine! And when we finished the downhill run to the lodge both of us indulged in Pisco Sours to celebrate -- we'd refrained from alcohol until then as a precaution but boy were we ready.

Oddly enough, the second lodge was at almost exactly the same height (12,000 feet) as the one we had slept in the night before -- so our total up and down of 6,600 feet (more than a mile) had gotten us "right back where we started." Except now we were over the pass and past the most challenging part of the hike.