OK, this is going to be some serious hiking!

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At day break, we are greeted at the entry of our tent by porters delivering hot coca tea and a bowl of warm water to wash our hands. Quickly packed our stuff so porters could pack the tent as we ate breakfast.

"Today is considered by many to be the hardest day of the trek; approx. ten hours, with 2 high passes (Dead Woman's Pass is the highest at 4200m / 13779ft) to cross and nearly 16km to walk. We get fantastic views of the high mountain ranges as we cross the 2 passes and will have the chance to visit 2 Inca sites , Runcuraccay and Sayacmarca. We will also see a variety of plant and life in the Polylepsis forests that cover this area and hopefully spot White Tailed Deer as we near Dead Woman's Pass. Our campsite tonight is at Chaquicocha (3600m / 11800ft) which like Ayapata is one of the quieter campsites and affords beautiful views of the sun setting over the mountains in the distance."

After several hours of hiking, I was feeling a little weary. But just as I was questioning the wisdom of taking this trek, a little old lady passed me wearing, what looked like bedroom slippers and carrying a huge pack on her back. I decided to follow and keep up with her. She seemed to care little about the distance she walked, but sought out the smallest stair step. She zig-zagged back and forth across the trail... seemed like a strategy. I have mentioned to people, although the Inca were supposedly short, they must have had disproportionately long legs, because the thousands of stone steps were very tall. Whether the strategy helped or the inspiration of the mountains, we made our way to Warmiwanusca (Dead Woman's Pass); named for a rock formation not an unfortunate trekker.

It was amazing how the climate changed as we crossed over this pass. Clouds were climbing up from the valley below and there was some rain drizzling enough to require our ponchos. We saw a white tail deer and some ducks in a pond below. There was also an amazing number of wildflowers blooming.

As the sun began to set below the mountain peaks, we approached Sayacmarca. OMG what an amazing place to sit and reflect on our humanity. This was the ruins of an Inca lookout constructed to allow communications between the various mountain tops, thought to include some kind of horn and/or reflective plates. (This proved to be my favorite ruin, even after exploring Machu Picchu.)

It was a short walk in the darkness to our campsite. We had already begun to appreciate LlamaPath, for the campsite was one of the smaller ones we had seen. And then there is the amazing meals. Over dinner we reflected on the day and marveled how all of us had survived the 10 hour trek in flying colors!

We all slept very well.

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