Mission Accomplished

- Wed 6th Jun 2007

After a gruelling 4 days of trekking through mountainous jungle terrain along the Inca trail, through stunning scenery, forum regular Download_Dave arrived at the ancient city of Machu Picchu in Peru, South America.

Although the Inca road system is said to cover over 14 thousand miles stretching from Ecuador in the north right down to Chile in the south, the trekkers only managed to cover somewhere close to 30 miles of the trail in the four days due to the very steep inclines and descents along the way.

Whilst in Lima, the capital city, the trekkers visited one of the local projects run by Help The Aged International, and were treated like royalty by the refugees who had been made homeless by the terrorist group "Shining Path". There were some 200 or so older Peruvians who despite living in total poverty were some of the happiest people I have seen in a long time. We spent the afternoon eating and even dancing with them. It was on of the most surreal and humbling experiences of the trip.

The challenge raised a total of £35,000 for the UK charity, Help the Aged.

For more details of the Inca trail including an interactive trek map see here..

http://www.raingod.com/angus/Gallery/Photos/SouthAmerica/Peru/IncaTrail.html

By forum user, Download_Dave

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