Day 7 - Trekking Day 4 (3,600 mtrs)

We woke up to a beautiful blue sky and wondered on the possibility of a day of good weather. Obviously this was not to be the case and the clouds soon duly arrived during another hard day's slog through the mud and dense foliage of the rain forest. We managed to avoid an early porters revolt by having lunch in a different location to them and then speeding past them when they were having their lunch which I think was quite a surprise to them. However a couple of hours later it started raining really hard which set them off again. To be fair, walking in a downpour is not too much fun for anyone and it gets really slippery and quite dangerous here so we are not too upset this time. It takes quite a bit of time to find anywhere that we can pitch our tents since there is a good few inches of groundwater everywhere. The rest of the day (as usual) is spent sheltering from the rain and then an early supper and early to bed.

Now dear reader, after three days of trekking I would like to give you an idea of what we are going through. About half the time is spent walking in almost knee deep mud which is tough going and pretty slippery and pretty much all of our gear is now filthy. At other times we are clambering round, through or under trees which is not easy with a pack on. The rest of the time seems to be walking on top of wet, slippery and rotten logs with drops on both sides, sometimes over the large river with some severe rapids - not the best when you have vertigo.
This afternoon we came out of the rainforest so the issues with trees and rivers have almost gone, however we are now walking pretty much continually through deep mud - that saps the morale as much as the strength. This is a very different challenge to big mountains!

Our porters are ideally built for this - short (so easy to navigate the trees and with a low centre of gravity) and with very large feet which both gives them grip and buoyancy in the mud.
We are not - being tall with narrow feet - and it is quite a struggle to cope with both the terrain and the constant cloud and rain. My other concern are my knees which still seem to be troubled following my fall right at the beginning.  Going downhill seems to be a lot worse than uphill and slippery footing doesn't help. I will have to see how they go but the journey back out does not look good at the moment.

Food:
Potato, egg and tuna fry up (actually a lot better than it sounds)
Sardines in spicy sauce (last night's substantial stew seems to have used up the last of the fresh meat)