Day 3 – 15kms, a mixture of up and downhill in an average of 3500m above sea level altitude.
There was no fucking around on the third day. I’d had a total of 4 hours sleep over the last 2 nights, I hadn’t been to the toilet in 2 days, (it was like my bowls instinctively knew that this was NOT the kind of environment it liked), and I was feeling highly nuclear.
Using the excuse of my fractured foot, I dumped 3 neurophens and continuously chewed on mouthfuls of coca leaves. Today my motivation was very serious – I had to make it to the next camp site to use the toilet.
Between the mixture of drugs and toxins in my body, I was hauling arse on the third day. Stopping for nothing except to take pictures every now and then to prove that I had actually been here. The views would have been quite spectacular, if a heavy fog hadn’t settled over the mountains making the background in every photo a white mystic screen that could have been anywhere really.
There was a section of the trek where I had passed everyone in my substance induced speed, and hadn’t seen or heard a soul for quite some time. I started to worry if I was going in the right direction? And if I wasn’t, would they send a porter through the mountains looking for me? And when the porter found me would they expect me to back-track?
At that moment Budd, an Aussy in my group, went flying past me using his hiking sticks as an extension of his arms, moving in tight synchronisation with his pace, like a well-oiled mechanical spider machine man.
T, relieved – ‘Hey Budd, glad you’re here! I thought I was going the wrong way’
Budd, zooming past me – ‘ Sorry, need to shit’ and disappears into the foggy distance.
I passed through the Runkurakay, Sayacmarca and Phuyupatamarca ruins with only the thunderbox in mind.
When I finally reached the third camp site, Budd was already there having a beer.
T, panting – ‘Where’s the toilet?!’
Budd sends me in the wrong direction, and after another few minute of messing around and saying ‘banyos’ (toilet) 15 times, I finally had my reward – a clean toilet that flushed!
I join Budd with a beer.
Budd – ‘How’d you go?’
T, big smile – ‘I am no longer poisonous’ proceeds to get drunk.
Tiara in Transit 