Peru - Chapter 6

Conditions improved on day 2, but it was still a bit foggy and wet. As we worked down the mountain it started to dry up and the sun came out. We only trekked until lunch time when we reached what would be our second campsite. It was in a flat valley dropped down right between several mountains. The scene could not have been better. We had an amazing lunch that included fresh rainbow trout caught in the mountain river that day.

I also had a very interesting encounter with a mother hen. Our tents were set on the interior of a rectangular stone fence and the only exit access point was a fence far and away to the left of the site. The outhouse, which was not actually an outhouse rather than a three-piece sheet metal building with a plywood roof, was located off and to the right, so it was quite an unnecessary journey to walk all the way to the gate and then back to the outhouse, especially since the 3 1/2 foot wall along the right side was easily scaleable. The only drawback was that the narrow path between the right side of the wall and a small wooden hut was the resting place for a mother hen and several of her newborn chicks. After I climbed over the wall, the hen turned abruptly and flared her wings up at me, making a distasteful sound. I tried to calm her worries with soothing talk, but as it turns out, the chicken family is not one that has keenly developed reasoning skills. She came at me in a flurry, and not knowing what to do and wearing flip flops, I did what any 6'0", athletic male would do when attacked by a 1' female chicken: I yelled like a little girl. This only made her more angry and she got a good strong peck in at my foot, which was exposed due to my wearing of flip-flops at the time, and she even drew blood. It was actually incredibly funny, even when it happened, but I was really shocked because out of all the things that you may lay awake at night and consider what you would do if confronted with that situation, the attack of an angry chicken somehow never came up.

With the chicken incident behind us, we headed down the mountain to a natural hot spring down near the river. The springs were extremely hot, and one was practically unbearable, which lead Justin and I to climb down the slope and into the mountain river. This was less than stellar idea. The water was the coldest I have ever felt in my life and it was rushing rapidly. It cooled us off from the unbearable heat of the spring, but I'm surprised it didn't set off cardiac arrest due to extreme shock. We quickly ran back to the warm pool and spent the rest of the time there sharing a box of wine and some more good stories.