Monday, 3 June, 2013; 7:49 PM; our tent, the campsite
Seriously, the Andes are amazing for stargazing - at least, the campsites are, because they all have spectacular views of the valleys and the mountains during the day, and panoramic views of the milky way at night. At this altitude, with this little light pollution, it's almost like you can have depth perception when looking at the stars. It's not a bunch of pecks that vary in brightness - at the right angle, you can almost believe that they're all hung from different lengths of string from the sky - the brightest are closer, the dimmer are farther. Like last night, the clouds are visible by their outlines - lit from behind by the numberless stars.
Obviously, night falls early in the equator, and it's easier to see the stars here than anywhere else I've been. That's probably just the campground and the fact that nothing grows too tall in the immediate area of the site.
Tomorrow, we go to the highest part of the trek, and the hardest. We peak Dead Woman's Pass (after trekking since 6:30). The summit is around 13,800 feet - 1200 feet shy of the minimum flying level. I don't think we're going to be hit by anything flying, unless a condor's sense of a dying body is piqued by one of us.
There is going to be a lot of uphill tomorrow, but we won't be doing as many stairs as we did today, thank God. I'm not sure I could keep up any forward movement if I had to repeat the number of stairs that we did today.
It's going to be way longer, though, and the first part will be higher. We'll have a net loss in altitude, I think, but we start the day by climbing. There's a second pass, too, but that one is lower and probably be as bad as the first - if only because we'll have started a pace and it won't be as high.
Right, I'mma be a little old lady and go to bed at 8:15 ish, because we wake up at 5:20 tomorrow. Goodnight.
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