Day 6 was the easiest of the 3 real days of hiking. It started with breakfast of banana porridge and an omelet pancake type thing. From there we had a fairly short climb where we should have been able to see the Inka ruin of Sayamarca which we passed the night before but we had a lot of cloud cover. All the same we got glimpses of it.
After that brief stop we had more climbing to the 3rd pass. We had a brief stop there then it was steep downhill for a while. The downhill was kind of rough on the legs but I used the poles to help out. The slope gradually lessened and we came to the next ruins of Intipata. These were awesome ruins with lots of terraces and great views. We spent about half an hour at the site before finishing the short distance to Winaywayna where we dropped our stuff in our tents and had lunch and a couple well needed cervezas at the restaurant building. I had the Cusquena negra which was much better than the standard Cusquena beer to me. Lunch was a vegetable soup and stuffed chicken (stuffed with cheese and hot dogs) with rice, beans, yucca and a salad.
We then had a couple hours of siesta and to organize and relax. We all took our first hot showers in 3 days for the cost of 10 soles apiece. The facilities were a bit scary with the electric water heater right on the shower head with wire held together by electric tape but it really felt good to be clean again. Unfortunately the heater on the shower I used was inconsistent and I got hot then cold rushes throughout the shower. All the same it felt the best...
After siesta we met with Justino to visit the ruins of Winaywayna which was a scientific farming site for the Inka. They experimented with growing different kinds of crops at different altitudes on the terraces due to the idea that each terrace changed soil temperature by 1C each. Mainly they grew corn and potatoes there. The site was spectacular and Brian even admitted to choking up a bit as we explored it. It is sort of sobering to see something so incredibly advanced for over 500 years ago and realize the Spanish came in and pretty much aimed to destroy things without learning remotely as much as they could from the Inkas based on the ideas that they were just savages and couldn't be nearly as advanced as a Catholic nation.
We got back as it got dark and played cards through happy hour then had dinner which consisted of a small veggie pizza, chicken with rice in a tomato base, fried rice, stuffed potato dumplings, stuffed hot peppers, oh and noodle soup. It was finished with a peach in syrup.
After dinner we had our celebration and tipped the porters and chef then headed to bed. We gave generously to both the porters and the chef. I added a bit more for Reynaldo because he carried some of my stuff up Dead Woman's Pass.
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