Peru, day 6

 We awoke the next morning in sopping wet sleeping bags and sleeping mats.  It had poured all night and though there were tarps under our tents, it was no match for the water.  Unfortunately, we had to stuff our soaking wet sleeping bags into their bags for the porters to carry to the next camp.  We knew this meant sleeping in wet sleeping bags again...

 This would be our really rainy day of hiking.  We also had to hike along the roads as the landslide danger was too high to spend it on the trail.  Often in the distance, you would see large sections of the mountain scorched.  This is to clear the way for farming.

 A road was washed out at one point so we had to cross the rushing waters.  We were very grateful to have our trekking poles here and I was grateful for waterproof boots!

 We made a stop-off at a local farm where they grew bananas, granadillas, cocoa and coffee beans.  The elderly gentleman running the farm was 115 years old!

 There was a small kitten that stole everyone's hearts (and laps!)

 We had a pup following us from one camp to the next.  This was pretty common, our guide told us.

 One of the best things about this day was that we'd be going to Santa Teresa, a natural hot springs, in the afternoon.  We hiked all morning, had lunch, and caught a bus to Santa Teresa (about a 45 min drive from lunch).  We were getting close to the hot springs when our driver stopped and let us out.  A landslide had just recently (within the past hour) taken out the road so we would walk the rest of the way.

 I'd never seen anything like it before

 This should be a road I'm standing on....

We made it easily to the hot springs, paid the 10 soles (for two) and hopped in.  It was the most amazing feeling after hiking so many days.  We stayed for about 2.5 hours and when I got out of the pools, my body felt like it weighed 1,000lbs!  By the time we were done, the road had already been fixed so we got picked up at the hot springs. 

We returned to camp for our usual snack, but they also had plantains in fried wonton wrappers.  We bought a few beers from the shop and shared with everyone.  We wouldn't have to get up until 7am (that's late compared to our other wake-ups!) so we enjoyed ourselves a little more.  The crew even put together a fire for us.  Dinner was a chicken and quinoa patty, parsnips and beets, rice, fried potatoes, and hop milk.  It was a really tasty dinner. 

The next day would be another relatively easy/short day as we'd signed up for a zip line tour.  It would save us 4 hours of hiking in the morning and we'd meet up with the group at a lunch spot.  Most people decided to do the same as we were all pretty wiped at that point.

Alex and I crawled into our still-soggy sleeping bags around 10pm.