Machu Picchu mission was trip of a lifetime
Chris and Ewan at the highest part of the trek - over 4000mtrs.
“I’VE been back at work two weeks – but my head’s still in Peru.”
Now it’s never easy to adjust to being back in the normal daily routine after a holiday – but even so, most of us have got back into the swing after a fortnight.
But then, Chris Roberts’ trip to Peru was no ordinary holiday. Actually, it wasn’t really a holiday at all: it was a charity trek in aid of Clic Sargent which just happened to take in some of the most spectacular sights to be found anywhere in the world, including the breathtaking ancient Inca ruins of Machu Picchu – and through which Chris and his friend Ewan Wilson, and their many generous donors from Bute, Cowal and beyond, raised some £5,000 for the children’s cancer charity.
Not bad going for something which started out as a throwaway joke. “We got a mailshot from Clic Sargent publicising an abseil down the Falkirk Wheel,” Chris told us, “and I said there was no way I’d do that because I’m scared of heights.
“I also said I’d rather go trekking in the Andes rather than do an abseil – and it all just took off from there.”
Chris and his wife Kim have spent a great deal of their spare time in recent years raising money for Clic Sargent following their daughter Brianne’s recovery from leukaemia – a recovery aided in no small way by the charity’s support.
But even though a trek to Machu Picchu is a world away from the Boxing Day Dip in Rothesay Bay which the couple have organised for the last two years, Chris wasted no time in getting stuck into preparing for his trip.
Those preparations included two ascents of Ben Nevis – “the first time, when we got near the top, I honestly thought I was going to die, but the second time it was a breeze” – along with plenty of hill walking in Cowal and frequent visits to the gym, courtesy of Chris’s bosses at Drimsynie Estates in Lochgoilhead.
Not that fitness was the most important thing once Chris, Ewan and their 26 other trekkers, all raising money for a range of good causes, reached the city of Cuzco, the historic capital of the Inca empire.
“It didn’t matter how much you trained,” Chris continued. “It’s the altitude that gets you.
“Cuzco is three thousand metres above sea level, and the acclimatisation day is at 3,200m. That was bearable, although you could still feel the difference in the air.
“It wasn’t until the really highest day, when we got to 4,450m, that I began to feel really bad. The only way I can describe it is that it’s like a really bad hangover, only trebled.
“When you’re adjusting to the initial shock, you can’t even have a conversation. All you can think about is conserving your breath.
“The youngest person in our group was 22 and the oldest was 60, but your age and your fitness wasn’t an issue – it was just a question of how your body dealt with the altitude.”
The trek took Chris and his fellow fund-raisers from Cuzco to Machu Picchu via Cuncani, Huacahuasi, Challwacocha, Ollantaytambo and Aguas Calientes.
Most of those names will mean very little to the average reader of The Buteman, but the journey, and the various stopping points on the way, provided the group with plenty of hair-raising moments – in more ways than one.
“Their main roads were like the forestry roads we have here,” Chris said, “and our supplies went ahead of us on a big truck.
“The point when the bus was going sideways along winding hill tracks wasn’t much fun, and then the lorry went off the road in front of us.
“At one point we found a football pitch on the side of the mountain. Then one day we were walking up a hill when a group of local children ran down to meet us.
“The group also sponsors the school these children go to, so we also took out lots of educational supplies and fruit for them.
“A lot of it was very emotional – these children have to walk for two hours in each direction to get to and from school, and although for us we might just have been giving them an apple, that’s their world.
“They’ve got nothing, but they’re happy. It totally opened my eyes, and no pictures or conversations can totally explain the reality of it.”
And what of Machu Picchu itself? Bypassed by the Spanish Conquest, unknown to the outside world until 1911 and designated a UNESCO world heritage site in 1983, it was voted one of the ‘new seven wonders of the world’ in a 2007 web poll and attracts visitors from all over the world – even at the crack of dawn.
“We got up at half past four to go to the ruins themselves,” Chris explained, “because we were told we had to see it at sunrise to get the best effect – but by the time we got there at half past six, we had to queue for 30-45 minutes to get in.
“At seven o’clock I phoned home to tell the family I was sunbathing at the top of Machu Picchu.
“What I couldn’t believe was the fact that there were all these people on the site, and yet you couldn’t hear a sound – it was like you’d found peace with yourself. It totally took the breath away.”
And it’s given Chris a taste for more: already in the planning is a walk along the Great Wall of China, and perhaps, a little further into the future, an ascent of Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa.
But for now he’s just enjoying being back at home. “There was one point where I was very homesick,” he admitted. “I’d never been away from home for so long, and there were a couple of hard days when I really would have loved to have Kim and the family there.
“Since I came back we’ve talked about going to Cuzco as a family, because you really do have to see some things to experience them fully – you can’t just describe them in words.
“If you’d suggested ten years ago that I would do this sort of thing I’d have said something you couldn’t really repeat in a family newspaper.
“I’ve definitely got the bug – I reckon I could even do that abseil now…”
