St George's News

Student's write up on their World Challenge Experience:

We went to Peru for three weeks with World Challenge. The trip was split into three parts, the community project, the trek and the R&R.

For our community project, we headed away from Lake Titicaca to a relatively rural school. The children ranging from all ages would spend two weeks at school and then two weeks at home in a loop, to be able to get a classroom education and an agricultural education. Even though some of us were suffering with altitude sickness we still played with the kids as soon as we got there. The balls, jumping ropes, and all types of games that we bought them with our fundraised budget were very much appreciated. They had been preparing a performance of traditional dances and songs which they performed for us, then we set up our tents in one of their classrooms. The day passed pretty quickly, watching their show and playing with the kids mostly, as the language barrier was quite an issue. We also were allowed to use their facilities to do our cooking. We spent the entire next day painting their school, and the students were very eager to join in. The last day we went to see a local farm, with guinea pigs and llamas, where we helped the women dehusk quinoa.

For our trek, we started off in Cusco, where we were picked up from our hostel very early in the morning. We drove away from the city and were dropped off in a clearing filled with horses and the other members of Waiki Travel, the company we were hiking with. Our heaviest bags were mounted onto horses and then we were off. Most days had the same pattern: The mornings we would be bundled up in most of the clothing we’d brought with us, but as soon as we started walking and the temperature rose, the struggle was no longer trying to be warm, it was remembering to reapply sun cream every hour. We were on the hike for 4 days and the rhythm would always be different. One of the biggest highlights was that Waiki Travel had provided us with a cook and numerous helpers to even set up our tents for us, so it felt more luxurious than we first though it would be. As soon as the sun started to set we’d forget that though, because it got so cold at night. The other highlight was reaching our summit of approximately 4600m, the breathing was difficult and most of us were exhausted having not slept at night but the view was absolutely worth it, and we could even see our camp from the top, so that afternoon was just a couple of hours walk downhill. Our last day of hiking was mostly a very steep downhill trudge until we got to our camp and could even see the village of Ollantaytambo which would mark the end of our hiking phase. That night we lit a fire and sat around it, while singing songs and listening to music. Because we’d had such a lack of oxygen for the preceding days, the sense of euphoria from being able to breath normally again was incredible and that night we all slept much better.

We did certain different activities for our Rest & Relaxation phase of the trip. The first of which was the exploring of the National Park in Paracas. Having the chance to visit the world’s driest tropical desert was a surreal experience and we even ate local delicacies that day, including Ceviche. Sadly, we weren’t able to go and see the Ballestos Islands as the weather was too bad. Next, we went white water rafting in Arequipa where we were divided into little boats with a guide each and sped down the river with the sun streaming down on us while freezing water was being sprayed at us. Many of the challengers even said that this was their favourite part of the trip. When we were in Puno, on the shores of the famous Lake Titicaca, we set off in a boat to see the Uros Islands, which are ‘edible’, floating islands and Taquile Island. Sadly, we weren’t able to do our last activity which was to visit Machu Picchu due to regional strikes. The roads and train lines were blocked with rocks and branches and we were stuck in Ollantaytambo - at a hostel run by a woman with a tribe of cats - for a couple of days before we managed to get a van back to Cusco in the dead of night, to get a police escort in the morning in order to not miss our flight.

Quotes from the team:

‘I came back a changed man.’

‘We did not negotiate with terrorists.’

‘Great experience, wouldn’t do it again though.’

‘I liked the views’

‘The coca leaves were great’

‘Climbing mountains is hard.’

‘You haven’t experienced horror until you’ve seen the Cruz del sur toilet after a twelve-hour journey.’