Salkantay day 2 - from Soray Pampa to Collpapampa

The magnum opus arrives on day two where the high Salkantay Pass awaits which is followed by a descent of almost two thousand meters down. A well-filled hiking lunch that requires a lot of climbing and descending!

I start again at the base camp of Soray Pampa where a cold night is alternated with a hearty breakfast. I pull out my gloves because the temperature is flirting with negative values and the sun is nowhere to be seen this early morning. The start is quite pleasant and is following the same route as yesterday afternoon with a slightly sloping route to where Humantay Lake awaits. Instead of going left I go straight on and in a very calm half hour I have already climbed almost a hundred meters. Well, that went very smoothly! However, King Salkantay thinks otherwise, because when the mountain slope comes into view, the gravel road is exchanged for a course of grass, stones, sand and small gullies that cut meadows into several parts. The gradient is also in the double digits here and this doesn't stop until the top of the pass has been reached.

The first real stop is at a large plain where there is also a shelter that sells soft drinks and energy drinks. However, I already have those things, but are still untouched in my backpack. At this point in the walk I am more amazed at the sheer number of hikers. I thought the Salkantay is a relatively quiet long distance hike but unfortunately that is a lie. I think I can count at least three hundred hikers and maybe more. I've been ahead of the rest of the group for some time now and when I stop I ask guide Dario to keep me company as the ascent to the pass really starts now and I don't know the way at all. However, he manages to reassure me that I should only turn right at a fork and keep following that road.

With that wisdom I resume the walk and, so to speak, I turn right to follow a road with rocks, stones, boulders and much more of that a uwesomeness pwards. It's going up pretty fast here with percentages that exceed twenty percent. However, I start to worry when I see no one is left on this trail and literally hundreds of hikers opt for the zigzag path of sand on the left. I don't see any of the guides and slightly panicking I immediately start descending as I suspect I went completely wrong. However, a guide from another group reassures me that I am indeed on the right path, but not after I have made a strong effort to first ascend and then descend. Let me say that I think the lack of a guide on this path of the day hike is a serious professional mistake... With a lot of sweat beads I manage to hoist myself up iuntil the second plain in front of the pass is reached.

This plain is adorned with some rocks and a small lake that does not compete with the beauty of Humantay Lake the day before. After regaining my strength, I start the ultimate ascent to Salkantay Pass. For this I first have to overcome a small passage with ice. It certainly doesn't require crampons, but the ice here is still dangerously slippery. The gradients also command respect, but after 3.5 hours I finally reach the top and it looks… a bit ordinary. No spectacular mountain lake or dramatic landscape, but a lot of rocks and the mountain tops of the Humantay and Salkantay that I have been looking to for several hours. Later I learn that a beautiful mountain lake could be admired here until 2019, but an avalanche of rocks buried the lake and since then you can only see rocks here.

This was perhaps the most strenuous part of the day, but the most difficult part is undoubtedly the descent to the lunch spot, which is two hours away. The route slowly but surely transforms into a road that consists exclusively of stones of all shapes and sizes. From slippery, abraded rocks to small pebbles that stick to the profile of your hiking boot. Both types have one thing in common: they make me fall. Fortunately, the falls are nothing more than glorified slides where I fall on my butt. There are so many stones that a sturdy pair of walking boots is an absolute must on this section of the trail. Great is therefore my satisfaction when I see a beautiful valley emerging where I can eat lunch. The valley is dominated by a stream with a red color that it gets from the iron-rich subsoil. It is also striking that the stream has a slight kink upwards that is easily overcome by the strong current.

After waiting forty minutes for my Brazilian travel companions - both of whom are now affected by altitude sickness - the final sprint starts. Well sprint, it's a three-hour descent, but fortunately in a different environment. Stones slowly but surely make way for a gravel road and from an altitude of 3900 meters I am treated to a green environment of cloud forest where I see beautiful plants, flowers and birds. A hummingbird above 3500 meters? That's normal here. This part is probably the most beautiful part of the whole day because the green cloud forest is simply a more attractive backdrop than the stone field of the Salkantay Pass. Still, I find the layout of this day a bit boring because it consists of one long climb up and an even longer descent of almost two kilometers down. This almost three-hour descent, however, passes surprisingly smoothly where at the end I get a nice view of a wild river that I can cross at the very last via a somewhat hidden bridge.

This walking day is one of highs and lows and you can take that literally. The climb to Salkantay Pas requires some effort, but is doable with a healthy dose of perseverance and a normal condition. Then the descent that immediately follows is a bit more difficult. The backdrop of the mountain peaks and later cloud forest is beautiful to see, but the layout of the course is rather boring, which means that this day evokes mixed feelings in me.