Friday, June 25th: Apolobamba Trek Day 3

It´s all downhill
Today we´ll hike down to Chacarapi, at 4100 metres. During breakfast we ask if we could buy some bottled water. Not possible, this hamlet has no store, so we drink as much tea as possible before we take off. After breakfast, Eulogio shows us his “Centro de interpretación”, an interesting month-to-month look into the year of the Quechua farmer. We ask to visit the school while in session. The teacher is happy to have vistors, and even happier to receive a whole bunch of pens for his students. Then we´re off to hike to an Inka site in the neighborhood. It´s got no name, but is spectacular nevertheless. We´re really thirsty by now, and Eulogio offers us some kind of wheat drink. Tasty, but it´s no water. Within 3 hours we gain sight of Chacarapi, the smell of fresh wild mind ticles our nose off and on during the hike. Until now it´s been level or downhill walking, this last part is a steep hike up to the village. A good sip of wheat drink and we´re on our way. It´s sunny but windy, and our lungs remind us that we´re still up really high, but we arrive in town in one piece. Eulogio, charming as ever,  leaves us in the hands of the Chacarapi host.

Feeling chilly in Chacarapi
We´re happy to have made it, but exhausted all the same. Chacarapi is a bigger than Kaluyo, it´s got a football field and a basketball field. The foodtball pich is maintained by grazing lamas. We get offered a fresh minty drink, which we finish in a second. More than ever I feel thirsty for water. Bad luck, the only store in town is closed, the owner has gone shopping in Charazani and won´t be back until tomorrow.  We won´t have water until Charazani, the end of the trek.

We agree to rest, because I´m feeling a bit chilly. Things get worse in the afternoon and I get cold fever. I´ve never felt so cold in my life, amd must cancel all afternoon activities, as well as dinner, to the great dismay of our host. Blandine assures me that the Alpaca meat dinner is excellent, but I can´t stomach a thing, I´m sick. The Kalawaya good health blessings were short-lived.