Sport In Action - Hitting the Heights

On the 18^th June 2010, we set off from Heathrow airport in pursuit of Machu Picchu ‘the old mountain’. The sacred city of the Incas is located in the northwest of South America, in a country called Peru. Peru has approx 28,836,700 people within it, largely from a pagan religious background although the current evangelical church is on the rise.

We spent our first few nights in Lima, the capital city of Peru, after a 14 hour flight via Miami. Steve and I must have slept for 12 hours, after confessing that neither one of us felt jet lagged!? Denial.

On day 3 we took an internal flight to Cusco, a small village in the Andes Mountains that provided our starting and resting place for the climb. We met with 16 other people we were climbing with us and quickly bonded with the ‘inexperienced’ members of the group for comfort! Percy and Kiki were our guides and briefly explained the type of adventure and challenges that we would face. He also described the porters (18) that would climb with us, carrying our sleeping bags, tents and gear-thankfully. Percy had personally climbed Machu Picchu over 500 times, but still enjoys every trip...

Our adventure took us 5 days to complete with day 1 being an easy start with visits to awesome archaeologist sites such as the sacred valley and Ollantaytambo. Ollantaytambo was generally reserved for the elite, and the Ollantaytambo Fortress was first a place of worship, as well as a location for studying astronomy. The Ollantaytambo Fortress is just on the outskirts of the old town; it has an overwhelmingly forbidding air about it.

Day 2 began with a 6 hours climb up and down the Inca paths to reach the first campsite. After a long, but exciting day, Steve managed to rustle up energy from somewhere to play football with/against the porters!  Day 2 and 3 were probably the most gruelling of days, with 11 hours of hiking by day 3 we were left battered and exhausted. It didn’t help that we both got sick and had to keep diving into the bushes for relief! It certainly was a first time for me!

The trail of the Incas cover 43 Km, reaching a height of 4000 metres. The most common way to access the ruins is by train taking approx 4 hours, with a bus trip at the top. But no.. we thought in the sprit of adventure we’d walk!!! Steve and I hadn’t trained for this trip and it showed, whilst your average group finished day 3 at 1.30pm; I came in at 3.50pm!!?? Steve of course was the first down on day 3, more out of panic, than sheer strength!