Day 2 of hiking on Achupallas-Ingapirca Inca trail:

I woke up at around 7 to more rain. I went back to sleep and woke up when rain had tapered off at around 8a ish.

We packed up and I made the difficult decision to hike in the only dry clothes I had. Our first, big hurdle was to cross a river and after some 15-20 minutes of trying to find a safe place, I decided to just take out socks and wade through deep water. I crossed safely but a lot of sand got into my shoe and no matter what, I couldn't get it out.

We hiked for another 5-6 hours through rain, swamp cities, dirt before we saw any signs of civilization. At around 12 or so, we saw the Refugio/Parc entrance but that was on another trail. So we kept moving. I knew we couldn't afford to spend another night out as we had no more dry clothes (other than what we were wearing) while out tents, sleeping bags were pretty wet.

I was out of water but didn't want to stop and treat water as my water purification tablets need atleast 10-30 minutes. And, I didn't want to stop at this point as it would have meant exposing ourselves to more cold temperatures.

Finally we started seeing some houses in distance and I have never been happier to see signs of human civilization. 

The first house I came across had some 10 or so dogs. Still, I calmly called out for the senor/senorita hoping to get some water and may be a lift to Ingapirca. Initially the senorita wouldn't entertain us probably because she had a 1-2 year baby and she probably was alone. Then she offered me tap water which is all I wanted. I filled up my camelback, added a water purification tablet and was on my way out.

Fortunately, we came across a collectivo who gave us a ride to Ingapirca for $7.5 each. Finally we were safe and freshened up once our bikes had been delivered along with our change of clothes.

I ate two plates of rice, eggs and potato fries for lunch+dinner of two days. Then at 7pm, I hit the sack under some 4-5 blankets which's common theme in the high plains of Ecuador.