Each day on the trail, our guide Filio (who I always thought his name sounded like “Fihlo” or “son” in Portuguese) would wake us gently in the morning with a hot cup of coca tea in our tents. Luxury!
He would then leave some warm water bins outside the tent so that we could wash up a little before breakfast. I could even wash my face if I desired.
It was pretty cold in the morning while we packed up and headed to breakfast. Kay was in his element as you can see. 🙂
The hike on the second day from Huayracmachay to Rayampata was downhill and pretty easy going. I was even at the lead of most of the hike since downward hiking is my thing. 🙂
Mid-morning, we stopped at a local house with Valentine to take a rest so he could show us this funny Peruvian frog game.
Below is a video showing how you toss the gold coins and try and get them in the holes or the frog’s mouth for points. Valentine was amazing and he beat all of us! I don’t think I even managed to score a point.For lunch we enjoyed some more delicacies by the hand of our chef. Working with local food and food portered along the route, he was very creative for camp food!
Also more soup, which we really appreciated because it was mostly raining this day. It was actually pouring all during lunch.
And the main course, which was again fantastic. I get hungry just looking at the photos again. Lots of potatoes and cassava.
From our lunch spot at Colpapampa, we hiked a bit further than planned to around Lucmabamba.
Here we hiked through a little village and camped at the outskirts. Below is the sign for the local school zone.
We arrived at campsite number two a little earlier than the day before. The grounds even had two showers, one lukewarm and one cold. I passed on showering, but ended up putting a lot of bug spray on that night to ward off the mosquitoes.
From there we enjoyed a nice sunset with some very pretty colors in the sky.
While people were showing before dinner, many also decided to dry out some of their clothes that had gotten wet during the day either from rain, sweat, or both.
Here Valentine told us another funny story about the river rising during one of his camping trips. During the night, the river rose swiftly and was making a fast, rushing sound. The locals started getting alarmed that a dam would break and flood the area within minutes, so they started to pack up and head to safety.
Valentine was nervous about the water and his trekkers, so he tried to wake them. For the most part, everyone rolled over and took forever getting up, but two girls were immediately dressed and running for the hills with their flashlights as the rest of the crew was still fumbling around for clothes and shoes. They ended up waiting up on a hill together for nothing, because as it turned out, the dam had not broken and the water was just fuller from the extra rain, but when the locals start running for the hills, you know you have to be worried!
I went to bed later that night so nervous about the river that I had nightmares about it rushing up and carrying our tents away. I had even prepared my things so that if I needed to rush out in the night, it would have been possible. I did not sleep very well that night. 😛
Dinner was tasty as usual. This time it was chicken legs and some kind of potato wedges. 
We ate until we stuffed ourselves silly and then Valentine told us lots of stories about the history of Peru, political leaders, local traditions… also crazy things like local female punching match traditions. Valentine liked to use the word, “Crazy” a lot in his descriptions about his culture. 🙂 That’s OK, we like crazy!
Up next, day three!
Alpaca Expeditions was founded by a retired porter and Inca tour guide. Their fantastic, professional tours specialize in sustainable tourism both by supporting local farmers and by paying fair wages to local porters, employee health/life insurance, and respecting local labor laws. The company also has social projects for children’s needs and they even work to help porters and their families to visit Machu Picchu, something that many locals in the area are never able to do on their own. By supporting Alpaca Expeditions, you can help them give back to the community and support the local Andeans.
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