Maybe God was listening after all. I woke up to the light of day and the sound of tea being made. It seems the sound of the river running next to my tent had sent me off to sleep, and the river had not broken its banks in the middle of the night as I had feared. The guide had placed an extra layer of some kind of animal skin on top of my tent in the middle of the night so that the rain wouldn't come through. He'd got the gas burner working again and we had tea and soup for breakfast. We set off again at nine, towards the lake at the end of the valley, and started climbing again. The ground was pretty wet and at some point I had to take off my boots to wade through the river. The guide did offer the horse but since I'd seen it run off the previous day because of the wind, I was happier to go barefoot. I spent most of the morning in my own thoughts as I hiked over the boggy ground and started to reflect on the previous day. And I felt like a bit of a spoiled brat. The guide lives in a fairly isolated village at 3000 m, where it is often cold (I was freezing the night I stayed there in spite of having hot water, and I'm pretty sure the hot water is just for tourists). He has spent many years of his life doing this trek, through all sorts of weather conditions, with all sorts of people. For very little money. No wonder he wanted to get it over and done with. I had got irritable with his questions about my salary but he was just being curious. Like I am about his life. He must see so many tourists passing through, whose lives are a complete anomaly to him, and he will probably never have the chance to experience our lives first-hand. And if he did, how would he pay for it? At least we get a glimpse of theirs, and this is a privilege. We come to South America with our high salaries and pay 2 dollars for a long bus ride, 10 dollars for a room for the night, 2 dollars for a three course meal, and complain when we think we are being ripped off. The majority of Ecuadorians can't even afford to visit the Galápagos Islands, a province of their own country, and yet the majority is also far more welcoming to tourists than are certain European countries. Everywhere I go I talk to people who have the utmost respect for Rafael Correa, whose policies are dramatically improving conditions for the poorer people of Ecuador. But the gulf between the widespread poverty in Ecuador and the comparatively easy lives of foreigners visiting Ecuador is something to reflect on as we wind our way through the country enjoying the best of what this country has to offer and sometimes turning a blind eye to the worst.
After a few hours, we reached some more Inca ruins called Paredones (ruined walls) and had a quick break. From there, the path took us over what seemed to be a huge plain for miles and miles. The wind was howling and the rain pouring down. I thought I walked fast the previous day - that was nothing. The guide was on his horse and the horse had had enough! Sometimes I lost sight of them and for a brief second I wondered how long I would be able to go around in circles for up on this boggy plain engulfed in clouds before the cold and rain froze me to the core. Then they would reappear from out of the clouds as if they had been just in front of me all along. We eventually arrived at a more populated area but still had a couple of hours to go until we reached Ingapirca, our final destination. The guide's time-keeping skills were seemingly as good as his knowledge of the altitude! - there was no way we would ever have made it to Ingapirca by 1 o'clock. Especially since I felt like I had run the past 10 kilometres. We finally arrived at Ingapirca around 4 o'clock, and the guide took me to a hostel where I could stay the night. As we arrived, the sun came out, and in the end, considering how bad the weather had been up there, I was incredibly grateful to him that we did do the trek in two days instead of three, and I feel like the whole experience gave me valuable insight into certain aspects of Andean life and culture, that I am lucky to have been a part of, if only for a short while.
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| Paredones |
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| Ingapirca |
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