Inca Doorway, Cuzco.
I arrived at the tambo with a ravenous appetite, but unfortunately nobody had telephoned from the previous tambo that I was coming, so that it was impossible to get lunch, and I had to wait two or three hours before I could get anything to eat at all. The men in charge of the various tambos were rather negligent in telephoning and making arrangements with the next tambo, as the kind of travellers they had on that trail was not of the highest type and could not always be relied upon for payment. The people in charge of the tambos were poor devils, half abrutis, to use a most appropriate French expression, by the life they had to lead in that forlorn country.
On January 24th we continued our journey over horrible deep mud-holes, which made the trail extremely dangerous. On that particular day we were travelling over sticky soil, so that when the mules trod in the deep holes they stuck with their hoofs and fell over, immediately struggling wildly to free themselves. One of my men was nearly thrown down a precipice that day, and all of us, as well as all the pack animals, had many unpleasant falls during that march. Swampy places like that were encountered for hundreds of metres at a time. In one place that day we had two kilometres of continuous swampy mud. In the afternoon I had a nasty fall, the mule rolling right on the top of me and nearly breaking my right leg. The animal in falling had sunk its head in the sticky mud, and was struggling madly to release itself. The animals were then marching chest-deep in mud. In my helpless condition I tried to get off when the animal fell, but sank up to my waist and stuck fast with my legs in the mud. When the mule rolled over, it knocked me down on the edge of the precipice, my leg remaining caught under the animal. Had not one of my muleteers been by my side at the moment and rushed to my rescue, I should have fared badly indeed.
We had a slippery descent after Tambo 33, where we had a lunch composed of putrid tinned salmon and "invisible" eggs—the latter dish being a speciality of that place. The tambo man insisted that I had eaten six eggs, whereas I had not even seen them except on the bill. He told me that I was wrong, showing me a napkin on which two yellow streaks were to be seen—though not left there by me, but by the lips of some traveller who had passed perhaps a month before.
We made a long march that day, having left at seven o'clock in the morning, and arriving at our halting-place at four o'clock in the afternoon.
The next day, January 25th, we had a trying march. Several land-slides had taken place, bringing down great patches of forest. Numberless trees had fallen over, making it difficult for the animals to be taken across. In one place all of them had to be unloaded, and they sank so deeply in the slush and soft earth that we had three or four hours' extremely hard work to cover a distance of about 50 m. The animals became so scared that they would not go on at all. The men who pushed and led them along that dangerous passage with a deep precipice on one side were in constant danger.
The rain, which had been torrential during the night, continued during the entire day, swelling the streams and making them most difficult to cross. In one stream my mule and I were swept away altogether. I had water right up to my waist while riding, and the mule showed only its head above the water. We were thrown with great force against some rocks, where, fortunately, my muleteers came to our help and got us out again.
Inca Steps carved in a Dome of Rock, Cuzco.