Did I tell you we were sharing our campsite with chickens?  At 6am the Wawqi’s came around with cocoa tea and hot water.  Today’s hike would take us from 8,737 to 12,300 ft. It was a beautiful hike — always up of course.  Wow – it was always amazing to look back to see how far and high you came.  We started at the bottom on the brown mountains just the day before.

Our campsite was always “just a little further”  – but I heard instead of chickens we would have Llamas.  It is hard to see but the little red dot is a farmer with Llamas and we are heading there.

My Roomie – Linda

Linda and I were tent and hotel mates.  It was so much of her support and love that added so much to my experience of this trip.  Overnight we would get into our tent and there would always be a break out of the giggles.  We were told that it was going to be very cold this night – down in the 30’s/40’s.  On top of that we had the longest and hardest hike the next day.  We would sit in our tent and meticulously plan out how we were going to keep warm, what we were going to wear the next day and the most important conversation was about how we were going to get up in the middle of the night to pee.  The grey tent was not that far away, but when you have to leave the warmth of you sleeping bag in the middle of the night it is a long and cold walk. Sooooooo, sometimes you just go outside your tent.  I have no idea what time it was, but I had to go.  I unzipped the tent and I hear from Linda “be careful when you pee – it flows towards the tent.  Well that started the giggles.  Then trying to get back in the tent and in the sleeping bag was like trying to stuff the Michelin Man in a stuff sack.  That was it — we both just burst.

This is a Linda stroke of genius — she used her puffy jacket to keep her feet and legs warm.

Thank you Pablo – we decided instead to go with Paul’s suggestion of filling our water bottles with hot water as a thermos to keep our feet warm.  Perrrrrrrrfectissssimo.