The pass we were to climb to today is supposed to look like a supine woman hence the name. I don t know why a supine woman has to imply a dead woman but I suppose ‘Supine Woman’s Pass’ doesn’t have the same ring to it.

We awoke at 5.30 to the sweet sound of bird song. Nicholas the oldest porter at 165 years old, came around to our tents and brought us a small bowl of warm water for our ablutions which would become more minimal as the days wore on. Our ablutions that is, not the water.

(Okay Nicolas is only 60 or so but he had a lot of missing teeth which gave his face a caved in look.)

We ate a hearty breakfast of bread and the most delicious omelette while the porters moved around the camp with practised ease, dismantling our tents, putting away pots and pans, taking away the contents of the toilet in a bag.

Today was the day that strikes fear into the heart of every Gringo who has ever read a single thing about the Inca trail. Words like ‘punishing’ had been thrown around to describe the 5 hour hike on Day two up and over Dead Woman’s pass at 4215 meters where I hoped I wasn’t going to become a dead woman myself. Then a 2 hour hike down. I wasn’t worried although there was no telling whether I would be affected by altitude. I was enjoying myself too much and if it was going to prove hard then so be it.

 Back on the trail we greeted people whom we had met the day before. A couple of gorgeous Argentinian girls who got the attention of all the men in their immediate vicinity, a lovely young German couple, a few Irish people who you could pick out as Irish as a distance of a 100 meters. What is it about us that is immediately identifiable? It’s not just our whiter that white skin and our somehow Irish looking potato heads or the fact that we’re not remotely sleek like so many other brown limbed Europeans. There’s just an indefinable Irishness that means we can always pick each other out of a line-up.

We spent the morning walking through cloud forest on a path that took us along a smaller river that ignored our upward progress and bounced off downward over the rocks to leap joyfully into the arms of its mother, the Urumbamba.

Alfredo told us to walk slowly and mindfully and ‘just enjoy’ and that’s what I did. Alfredo should be in charge of the world, I was thinking contentedly to myself. The morning was cool and sunny and I put one foot in front of the other up and up the stone steps. And up.

For hikers from Ireland who normally have to climb on mountains where a wet sucking bog tries to ingest your every footstep, I found it a great luxury to walk on dry stone. There was far less labour involved walking on solid ground. There would be no trench foot here. I still had a sort of background headache and I was breathless certainly as we gained altitude but nothing serious and I stopped regularly to look around and chat with other hikers.

We stopped for a leisurely lunch at 1 O clock and plenty to eat and drink to fortify us for the final climb. I chatted to an Irish couple, sympathising with the guy who had been up all night with diarrhoea.

After lunch we trooped off again, leaving the forest behind and emerging into a vista of mountain scenery on all sides. We were surrounded. Snaggly toothed mountains in stark relief against a vast sky. Shape changing clouds. A glacier peeping between two high spurs in the distance. I had to stop a little more regularly to catch my breath but that was fine because that gave me just another opportunity to look around.

My legs felt fine, my breath came back every time I stopped to rest, the sun was shining and it was truly wonderful. I started to get cocky then and felt a certain satisfaction as I took my short arse past mere saplings in their 20’s and 30’s and left them far behind. I felt strong and enormously grateful to be there enjoying such an experience.

When I was preparing for a marathon which I did for my fortieth birthday I remember reading that middle aged people are often more successful at training for endurance courses as they have more patience and mental discipline. Maybe there are up sides to being ‘mature’.

At one point in the midst of all of this mindful shit, I was walking past Hombre who had stopped to rest. His pack was still attached but resting on the wall behind him. We smiled at each other and I said intelligent things like ‘Whew!’ and ‘Well well!’ as I stood before him panting like an eagar puppy.

I said “Not far now eh Hombre?” as I could see what looked like the top of the path up ahead. Hombre pointed to a mountainy hump to the right of the saddle indicating where I had to go.

“Oh righto” I said without complaint and lurched on huffing and puffing cheerfully. I did wonder vaguely why Hombre had such a shit-eating grin on his face as I left him.

Ten minutes later I landed at the saddle and Darren who had arrived before me, told me that I had made it. I was at Dead Woman’s Pass and I was very much alive.

 I looked around unconvinced. “What?  But what about that yoke over there” I persisted pointing my walking pole at the mountain hump that didn’t even look navigable now that I was closer. “Hombre told me we had to go over that.”

I was strangely reluctant to let go of the notion that I was going to have to toil and struggle unto the death at some point. I was mentally prepared for the religious experience that comes in the aftermath of the gruelling and punishing. I had arrived at the top of the pass without any problem whatsoever. What was I supposed to do now with all that hard earned mental preparedness! I had been cheated!

 Hombre was just arriving behind me. I went over and gave him a shake. ‘You imp! You were teasing me!” Hombre didn’t have a single word of English but was laughing. He had set me up.

Pat and Alfredo joined us soon after. We took a few photos and then set off for the 2 hour walk down to camp. This was a total bore and after climbing upward all morning it was an adjustment trying to convince our bodies to change gears. I had heard that this downward trek after all the uphill slogging, was hard on the knees so I used my walking poles like crutches. Leaning on them as I put a foot down. This seemed to work well and at the end of the days walk I marvelled at how good I felt and I gave my thighs an affectionate little thump when I finally sat down at camp. My abbreviated legs would never see a cat walk but they have been great friends and have brought me to places that I would never have seen if they were less enduring.

Apologies if all of this crowing about how great I felt is annoying to those who are punished on this day of the walk or to those who suffer from altitude sickness at this stage. My legs are somewhat conditioned from my mountainy life at home and also I did everything you’re supposed to do to prevent altitude illness. I drank lots, ate well and took my time.

My advice to those who ask how fit you have to be? You need to be fit enough to hike in the mountains for several hours. Regular hill walkers of all ages would have no problem with the Inca trail.

And if there are no mountains in your life?

Get reasonably fit. Do strength training for a few weeks before hand to condition legs. Walking on flat ground for a half hour every evening after work will not give you the legs for a hike upward.  Nor will housekeeping or gardening. Some of the back packers I passed were only in their twenties, young people travelling around South America but while they had youth and strength on their side many of them were only reasonably conditioned to walk upwards for hours at a time and some struggled. On the third day I noticed one of the young Argentinian girls lying in a sleeping bag outside the dining tent at one of the camps. Altitude possibly.

Everybody makes it of course. It’s just about how comfortable you want to be while making it. So get fit, and strengthen your legs. They will be a great friend on the Inca rail

And as Forest Gump said “And that’s all I gotta say about thayat”

Today the camp was a series of natural platforms beside a river with the different levels joined by little trails and steps. Porters from the bigger companies like Exodus and G adventures were already there setting up.

It was only early afternoon and we betook ourselves to our tents for a snooze before dinner and for the rest of day I idled, reading and writing and occasionally hanging out near the kitchen tent to watch preparations for dinner and generally annoy the porters.