Peru... Day 4

This morning was a 5 am start! A few of the cooks woke us up by bringing us hot coca tea in bed! It was amazing!!!
We had porridge and fruit for breakfast and then set out for a big, hard day of hiking.
Starting in Zurite we hiked 1050 meters up hill to reach a summit of 4500 meters.
I can't even begin to describe how difficult it was. I'm pretty unfit anyway, but the altitude was crazy and made it so hard to breathe. We would take 50 steps, stop for a break, another 50, another break, and so on.
We all had headaches and a little nausea at some point along the way.
Getting to the top was unbelievable! The view was spectacular... And with the exhaustion of the hike behind us, we were all a little emotional! (I may have shed a tear when I finally got to the top!)

After descending for about 2 hours more we found our lunch site where our crew had hot water for washing our face and hands, hot coca tea and purple corn tea to warm us and help with the altitude and an amazing lunch of cream corn soup and pasta!
After lunch the altitude got the better of Eliza and she vomited. She drank the corn tea earlier and her puke was bright purple! Our guides hoisted her into the ambulance (which was a horse!) and she spent some time wearing a ridiculous helmet and resting.
After lunch we had another two hours of pretty flat terrain to reach our camp site.
Temperatures are supposed to drop to minus 8 tonight... After more soup and chicken and vegetables for dinner, we are all straight off to bed!
What a day!