After the initial deceptively flat surface and rather easy ascent, the Inca Trail reveals its true colors. Much of it is very rugged, rocky and even treacherous. Our guide warned us early on about the second day, a steady climb to Warmi Wañuska (Dead Woman's Pass) at 13,776 feet. I woke up in my tent in the middle of the night before the dreaded day was to begin, and I heard rain! "Good God," I thought, "I hope it stops before we have to take off." It did not! A very unusual steady rain had set it. One encounters such rain normally only during the rainy season beginning in late October. We began our trek on time that morning. What other choice did we have? Even with ponchos on, we were all soon soaking wet from head to toe.
The ascent proved as arduous as our guide had warned us it would be. With every step I took, my hiking boots squished out water, a feeling as unpleasant as almost any I'd ever experienced. With every squish, I became more irritated at the situation. Sadly enough, no beautiful flowers, exotic birds, breathtaking waterfalls or valleys took my mind off my misery. Thick clouds covered up just about everything.
Near Dead Woman's Pass, I suddenly felt my face being pelleted and looked up to see that the rain had become sleet mixed with snow. I turned around and noticed the snow capped peaks of the Andes to my left seemingly not far above me. Watching the snow swirl near those peaks was truly wondrous. I wish I could have let myself go. I wish I could have surrendered to the moment, lingered like Faust in that moment, because it was so beautiful, but I was too exhausted and too anxious to do so. Until then, I had been keeping my eyes most of the time on the trail. It is so often treacherous that one misstep could easily result in serious injury or even death, if one were very unlucky. There are many times when there are only inches between the hiker and a drop of thousands of feet.
We hikers didn't stay together. We hiked at our own pace. I had left my nephew behind in the hands of a guide who took good care of him. I found myself near the summit, soaking wet, freezing to the bone, sapped of most of my strength and alone. I was concerned about my nephew and wanted to wait for him and the guide, but I really didn't know what to do. I was near my wit's end. Suddenly, I noticed a man, Peruvian and in his early thirties, who told me he was a tour guide. Feeling relieved, even somewhat comforted, just because I was no longer alone up there on top of the world in a nasty storm, I explained my situation to him. His words were immediate, direct, even forceful. He told me not to wait. It was dangerous. I should continue to the camp. Of course, I took his advice and treked on. A few steps later, I looked back. He was gone. Gone as suddenly as he had appeared.
Descending on the trail is just as difficult and demanding as ascending on it, even more so in freezing rain and snow. The steps are often so uneven, so rugged and precariously laid that your feet, your
ankles, your shins, your knees and your hips take a constant pounding, a pounding that might go on, with only occasional relief when the path flattens out, for several thousand feet. I had never before been so physically and emotionally challenged.
As I slugged on to the camp, I started thinking about that man. He said he was a guide, but oddly enough, he was alone. There is no reason I would have immediately noticed his sudden appearance on the top of that pass. I was transfixed, as I said, lost in anxious thought, almost literally frozen, and nearly at my wit's end from exhaustion and worry about my nephew. There is also no reason to wonder about his disappearance after I had taken a few steps toward the camp and then looked back. I've been in enough cities with friends who have disappeared, seemingly in the blink of an eye, on a crowded street, to imagine that the man just vanished into thin air. Still, he appeared with advice just when I was feeling most desperate, advice that was more like a command to a child than advice to an adult. The encounter began to seem strangely more curious than ordinary.
The further I find myself away from the actual experience, the more I have begun to wonder about that man. The Incas worshiped those mountains. Could he have been a spirit of the mountains? Could he have been a guardian angel? I was so grateful to reach our camp that I didn't even tell our guide about my encounter. I got into my tent and changed into dry clothes. I didn’t take a shower, though, although nothing would have been more welcome. The shower was a pipe sticking out of the wall and spouted freezing cold water. My nephew arrived, safe and sound, about an hour later. The man never showed up again. I will always wonder exactly who he was.
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