Inca Trail – Day 2. Dead Womans Ass

It hurts, I’m hurting. I can’t do this. Dead Womans Ass can stay where it is, I’m not going to make it. I should have given up smoking. I did. Well, its been 2 days. Fuck. Shit. Ok, that walking stick is going to come in handy right now. This better be worth it. Take your time Skye, you can do this. Nope, no you can’t. What’s with the bloody stairs!!! Oh god. You can’t give up. You can’t give up. You can’t give up. I aint coming in last. No frigin way. Fucking steps!…

So that’s how it went for the first hour or so after leaving camp just after sunrise. We had 5 hours of serious incline and something like 1500 metres above sea level to climb. Dead Woman’s (P)Ass (which we renamed the ‘Boob’ for obvious reasons) was to be our biggest achievement and my inner voice was not prepared. I really struggled the first hour, and I stuck with Nina, my champion, who would always be last, but who never ever conceded defeat. I made it to our first rest stop though, and again, my body was more in tune than my mind and wasn’t ready to rest.

I now thought, that if I just kept my own pace and wasn’t concerned about how far behind I was, then I could just focus on getting to the Magnificent Boobie AND if I could do that, I could do anything. And well, that’s what happened. It was really hard, but I just wanted to get it over and done with. I wanted day 2 to be over and done with. I would make myself little goals, and eye off a tree, where I would promise myself a break, but then when I got there, I would just keep going. I have no idea what kept me going sometimes… Maybe just that Boob…

And I got there. We all did. And we were all pretty pleased with ourselves. We had all accomplished it in under the 5 hours suggested, considerably less so in fact. And none of us were violently ill or had broken limbs.*

The Nipple as it was. We made it...

So, after a break to contemplate our achievement, to refuel and put some more clothes on we began the 2 hour descent.

And here it was that I discovered a dormant talent as a dainty footed rock hopper. I sped down that mountain so fast I never had time to understand what my own feet were doing. I was first in camp by miles that day. I think it only took me 45 minutes to get to camp. And wasn’t I pleased with myself! Too bad I would pay for it dearly later on – when my arse and thighs wobbled when I attempted to hover over the some of the most disgusting toilets I´ve ever seen, and the next day when we had to descend again…

I think it´s appropriate here, to talk about some of our fellow hikers. Not in our group, but those outsiders that really gave us all the shits…

There is of course, those fellow countrymen who you just want to shake, fold them back into their massive suitcases and send them back to whatever hick town they come from. Or those you want to strangle because they are just so damn upbeat;

• The stupid Americans who on Day 1 asked if they were at Macchu Pichu???
• The skinny bitches dressed like Inca Barbies, who could get any guy to do anything for them with just a flutter of eyelashes. (was I jealous much? Well, maybe, but wasn’t my achievement all the greater because I went without make-up and different clothes for the entire time?);
• The other skinny bitches dressed like Malibu Barbie when it was about 5 degrees;
• The douchebag Aussies that sang Khe Sanh and talked up how ¨many chicks they had routed¨ while travelling and what pubs they hung out at in Cronulla (this is why Australian men turn me off when I travel. Never pash an Aussie when abroad! Learnt that lesson years ago!);
• The hardcore hikers carrying their own packs without a guide or porter, and who we would later see reduced to tears, but yeah good on em…
• And then there were the dickheads that would overtake running on the narrowest section of the path and almost take everyone down the mountain with them.

But that was them, and this was us. We had nothing but pride in each other for making it that day. (Getting a little cheesy isn’t it?) But, there was nothing like that feeling of achievement. It was almost as if Dead Woman’s Ass was what you had to come to do and not just an obstacle in getting to Macchu Pichu.

2 days down, 2 days to go.

*we later found out that someone had had a heart attack on reaching the Boob. We aren’t sure what happened to them?