Our climb started at 4:30 in the pitch black with head torches. The boys shoes partially dried under the gas hobs of last night’s cooking (they didn’t melt thankfully), still needed lining with plastic bags to keep their feet warm. But apart from that we were up for the challenge!

We had 3 hours to climb just over 900m up in 5km. If we didn’t do it in 3 hours we missed breakfast. If we didn’t do it in 3.5hours we missed our bus back to Arequipa.

Less than a year ago I would have really worried about making it up in time. Unfit and injured. But after joining k2fit and months of putting in a lot of effort into my fitness, loosing over 13kg in weight, training for a triathlon (coming third in a triathlon), improving my cardio vascular and building some muscles I knew I could do it. Yeah it was gonna be tight but I knew I could dig deep if needed.

With a large numbers of two day hikers joining us, the beginning of the hike echoed sceans of some biblical migration. A hushed line of small flickering lights zigzag above and below us, with the only real sounds being those of shoes on rocks and mules clomping by. The good thing about the darkness was all you could or needed to focus on was the next step up and not tripping over.

As the sun rose about an hour in we were gifted beautiful views over the canyon but also a view of how far was left to go…. or should I say a view of all the stairs and up zig zags as far as the eye could see.

After a brief pause to take in the sun rise and check my pace I set off again. Now walking alone… my family miles ahead I kept a steady pace, racing the sun line to the top. I over took a few people, a few people over took me, all the time just focusing on my pace, enjoying the views and not falling over.

In the end the sun beat me and the last 15mins was with the morning sun on my back. I made it up in 2:59.29 seconds BOOM! The boys made it up in 2:20 ish 😱😱. So proud of how resilient they are, it wasn’t easy, they fell a couple of times, they flagged and encouraged each other and in the end raced to the top.

After a well earnt breakfast we drove all the way back to Arequipa with a quick pit stop at 5000m to add our own stones to the piles.

A great few days! And feeling ready for the hikes to come we fly to Cusco!