Sul Pie Quee

The porters are absolutely amazing. They are carrying at least four times as much as me. Monstrous loads on their backs, without the benefit of hip belts and padded suspension. Most have fashioned shoulder straps out of plastic potato sacks, tied their loads together with rope, and walk in sandals made from old tires.

They wake one hour before us to cook breakfast, bring hot tea to our tents to wake us up, and then stay behind after we leave to break camp, take down our tents, wash dishes, etc. They then start trekking and must beat us to the next stopping point, have everything (including our tents) set up, juice ready to greet us when we walk into camp, and lunch ready. Every meal is three course - lunch and dinner are bread and soup, main course, and dessert.

All this, and along the trail they still greet us with smiles and words of encouragement... 'Vamos! Como estas?' Unbelievable. I even see some of them carrying two dozen eggs in the flat cartons with string, by hand (and a lump the size of a small refrigerator on their backs...) Most speak Quechua (a local language very different from Spanish) and I learn how to say something that means close to 'I am in deep gratitude to you' (the word thank you doesn´t exist). Sul-PIE-kwee is the best phonetic I can do.

xoxo