Day 6 - Trekking day 3 (2,600mtrs)

We have a quick breakfast and pack up and then get going to catch up on the hours missed yesterday. The weather as seems to be normal is pretty good in the morning with the strong sun coming through the trees and making it pretty steamy. Again there is plenty of fun with steep slippery slopes and river crossings.

We get to the planned campsite after 1.5 hours so things seem to be going pretty well. We have lunch at another campsite at 11:40 - as usual lunch is not my favourite meal on these trips. Here we have biscuits and chocolate bars which I am not really in the mood for.
As we are getting ready to leave, there seems to be some excited chatter amongst the locals and our guides get drawn in. It turns out that we have porters from both the local tribes and one of the tribes isn't happy about the performance of one of the older porters in the other one or as they claim they are concerned about his safety and think that he should be sent back. Obviously the other tribe vehemently disagree - no doubt they would be unable to agree and lose face even if they did privately agree - and a long 'discussion' ensues with plenty of finger pointing.
This seems a little odd to me especially as we happen to be at a campsite and my gut feeling is that this is just a delaying tactic and that soon they will say that it is now too late to carry on.
It is not clear what resolution is reached on this as it appears that the conversation shifts a bit and our guide seems to be having a few stern words of his own. It turns out that the shift in conversation was that it was now too late to continue on for the day as we might not reach camp before dark as i suspected. This was now in a way true as we had spent almost two hours here. Our guide had been saying that this was now twice in two days that this had happened and if it occurred again we would send them all back and carry on ourselves without them. It would be tricky and we would be down to the bare essentials for the rest of the trip but doable.
As I write this, I remember that late on in the various discussions a few of the porters  (who were not really involved in the discussions) were pointing at us and laughing - we w ereassuming that this was some private joke rather than at the idea / threat of us continuing without them!

Anyway, we are forced to stop early again so set up camp. It rains most of the afternoon so we spend it in our tent. Another good supper and early to bed in preparation for another 6am start.

Fried rice with omelette
Assorted biscuits and bars
Chicken stew with spicy vegetables and rice