Day 4 - A Rainy Day (Day 3 - Tuesday)

It was damp in the morning as Boris brought us our coca tea to our tent during our wake up call. As usual, we had another delicious breakfast and hit the trail shortly thereafter. Today was going to be a day of slight climbs, lots of downhill, nothing like yesterday! Thank god! According to Boris, it would also be the most scenic day.

The rain started coming down heavier when we were about to leave, so we all put on our rain gear (jackets, ponchos). Our hike for the day would take us from Pawaymayu at 11,480 feet to Winay Wayna at 8,692 feet. It pretty much rained all day while we were out hiking. But the rain wasn't too bad as it wasn't too cold outside, just more of a nuisance than anything. We got to visit one of the ruins before it started pouring down, then ended up walking past another ruin so we could get to camp. It was mostly downhill for the most part, hard on the legs, in a different way. I'm just glad the rain held off for a day, it would have been miserable if we had to do that Day 2 hike in the rain!

Because of the rain, I didn't take any pictures today...bummer. It was so pretty in many of the areas today as we were walking through the cloud forest. I'll post some pictures as I think some of the others were taking pictures that I can borrow...

Camp was a mess because of the rain, our tents were in the mud, we were wet and soggy. But the scenery was spectacular! This is the view we had from our tent, and my soggy boots. Surprisingly even though we trudged through the mud today, my feet remained dry!

In the afternoon, we took a short hike to a ruin called Winay Wayna. It was the most spectacular ruin that we had seen so far. Boris explained that this ruin was a laboratory for the Incas to see what types of crops they could grow. The terraces were spectacular, over 50 on a steep, steep hillside. Its amazing how advanced those Incas were to figure this all out. The purpose of the terraces in the Inca civilizations were made to prevent erosion of the hillside, they also served to provide a way for the Incas to grow their own crops at each level.
Tonight was our last night of camping, tomorrow we would make the final trek to Machu Picchu. Woohoo, I can't believe we had made it this far, we were almost there! We had a special ceremony at camp tonight with the porters...they all introduced themselves by name and age, including saying whether they were married, and how many children they had (if any). It was also our time to express our gratitude for their hard work to make our trip enjoyable and for us to give them their tips. We selected Tucker to present the tip for the porters; Nathan presented the tip to the cook. I think we each contributed about 180 soles to be divided among the 14 porters, the cook, and Boris (we gave him his tip on the last day however). I almost felt cheap giving only about $60 in US dollars considering how very hard those porters have to work, but there is a guideline for tips that we adhered to. In some of the research, it said not to give the porters too much as sometimes they would waste the money (such as spending it on alcohol) rather than giving it to their families. They each shook our hands and said "Muchas Gracias" (thank you) after we gave them their tip. It was a special moment...heck, we should have been thanking them. We would have never made it this far without their service!

Tonight we went to bed early as our wake up call for tomorrow morning would be at 4am! We had to pass through another trail checkpoint that opened at 5am. I think I slept better tonight.
=================================================
Unfortunately, I forgot to start my GPS at the beginning of the hike, so I probably missed a couple of miles of hiking in the stats below as I think Boris said we would be hiking around 9 miles or so...

Trip Odometer: 4.29 miles
Max Speed: 8 mph
Moving time: 2.36 hours
Stopped: 6.01 hours
Moving average: 1.6 mph
Overall average 0.5 mph
Elevation at camp: 8692 feet
Descent from previous night's campsite: 11,480 feet to 8692 feet