Fiona's Amazon Adventure

Fiona in Peru, originally uploaded by Cambodia Trust.

When I first heard on New Years' Eve in 2004 that my right leg had been amputated I had no idea where I would be or what I would be doing just under four years later. And that was probably quite a shame, because if I had known then that by September 2008 I would be fitter and healthier than I had ever been before, and moreover would be cycling through some of the most beautiful scenery in the world whilst raising money for a charity very close to my heart, I think that I would have been a lot happier with my lot.

I have just returned from the ride of a lifetime, cycling 350km through the Andes and down to the Amazon jungle in Peru. I signed up for this ride for two reasons. The first was, completely selfishly, because I wanted to go to Peru, have the time of my life, and see Machu Piccu. But the second, and the real reason for my ride, was to raise money for The Cambodia Trust. Since I had my leg amputated in the wake of the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004 I have been given access to the best hospitals, the best doctors, and the best legs that money can buy. For this reason, my life now remains substantially unchanged from what it was before Boxing Day 2004. I still work full time, I live with a husband who loves me, I go on holidays to fantastic parts of the world whenever time permits, and I do as much exercise in the form of running, walking, and cycling as I ever did, if not more.

I am, however, acutely aware that all of this is only possible because I am, compared to people in developing countries, ridiculously rich and privileged. This fact became starkly clear to me whilst lying in my hospital bed in the Thai beach resort of Krabi in the aftermath of the Tsunami. My family and friends had searched high and low to find me, and the minute they did they arranged for me to be airlifted to one of the best hospitals in Bangkok, where I received top notch treatment. All of the time that these arrangements were being made to help me, there was a Thai man lying in the bed next to me, with horrific head injuries, dying. The only reason that I survived and he did not was money.

A lot of amputees in war torn and developing countries were not rich when they lost their legs like I was. They do not have health insurance or family who can arrange for them to be given the best medical care out there. And the kind of hi-tech, state of the art prosthetics that allow me to put my high heels on and totter to work every morning just like I did before losing my leg, are not available to them. In fact, in many cases there are no rehabilitation facilities whatsoever available to them. Which is why organisations like The Cambodia Trust are so important.

The Cambodia Trust provides amputees in conflict stricken and war torn countries with the mechanical means (in the form of prosthetics) to get them up and walking again, and also with the mental and emotional tools to cope with their disability and to reintegrate into their societies which are, often, far less tolerant of difference and disability than the western world is. Not only does The Cambodia Trust provide all of this to amputees and other people with disabilities, but it also trains prosthetists and orthotists from countries all over the world to make the prosthetic and othotic devices which are so essential for their patients.

Whilst my prosthetic legs have allowed me to return functionally to a normal life, walking, running, dancing and cycling again just like I used to, the help and support that I have received since losing my leg from my prosthetists, physiotherapists, and all of the people surrounding me, has also enabled me to accept what happened to me in the Tsunami and move on with my life. I hate to even consider how different things would have been for me had I not had all that available to me. Which is why I am raising money for the work that The Cambodia Trust does for disabled people all over the world, and why I decided to do the ride in Peru.

So, to the ride....

We set off on a dull September morning from London and flew to sunny Lima where we spent an evening before taking the early morning flight to one of the most beautiful cities in the world, Cusco. Cusco was originally the capital of the Inca empire, but was conquered by the Spanish in the 16th century. Because of this I thought it looked a bit like Seville (which not to leave any room for doubt I also thought was extremely beautiful - but it does look a bit like Cusco). Cusco is very high up in the mountains, at 3,400m, and our cycling was to take us even further up, to 4,200m. For this reason it was necessary for us to spend a couple of nights in the general area to help us acclimatise, and what else to do better whilst acclimatising than go to visit Machu Piccu?

So, bright and early the next morning (or to be more accurate - dark and early at 4am (this was to become a feature of the trip)), we set off from our friendly and warm hotel in Cusco on a cold dark damp tour bus to catch one of the most famous trains in the world, the train to Machu Piccu. By the time we arrived there at 8.30am the sun had come out, the birds were singing, and it was a beautiful day. Machu Piccu, a lost Incan city, was discovered in 1911 by an Hawaiian explorer Hiram Bingham, and has since become one of the most popular tourist attractions in South America and one of the new seven wonders of the world. And it truly was wonderful. Standing at its entrance I looked out over the city and tried to imagine what it must have been like for the Incas living and working somewhere like this. I decided in conclusion that packages to the Costa Del Sol must have been pretty difficult to sell to Machu Piccu'ans in its heyday.

After a morning spent exploring the remains of this lovely place and being mauled in a very friendly manner by all of the llamas who seemed to have made their homes there, we took the train back to Ollantaytambo, the town from where we would be beginning the dreaded ride the following morning. Now, although my intentions when I signed up for the Peru ride with regards to my training were extremely commendable, I have to admit that I did not keep to them. At all. In fact, before we left the UK I had managed to cycle up my local mountain three times, and had been on one cycling weekend away which, together with a few spin classes at the gym, was about it. I was therefore, understandably, rather worried about the challenge I had set myself. This was not helped by the fact that the group I was to be cycling with appeared to be made up predominantly of men who looked like they had been born on their mountain bikes, and who had been talking about parts of bicycles that I had never heard of incessantly to each other since the moment we all first sat down on the plane in London. Oh, and everyone apart from me had two legs which I was also slightly worried about.

Regardless of the above, we all got settled into our new guesthouse in Ollantaytambo when we arrived there by having a few beers in the pretty garden and comparing the bites and sunburn we had managed to acquire through our three hours in the sun at Machu Piccu. After that it was time to shower for the last time before we were to start camping, dinner, and bed early in preparation for the day that lay ahead of us.

The next morning dawned bright and sunny. One thing I noticed about the weather in the Andes was that the mornings always tended to be bright, hot and sunny, and then in the afternoons the clouds would come, bringing the temperature down dramatically and meaning that my cycling "daypack" generally was packed with clothes for more different types of weather than Imelda Marcos had shoes. After a short tour of the town, the inevitable became unavoidable, we all climbed on our bikes, and started cycling.

The first day was an easy one. 70km along mostly flat tarmaced road towards the town of Pisac where there was a pretty local market to see. As we cycled along we would hear the occasional "Ola Chicas" from the odd Peruvian lad and wave back. Later on the day we learned to say "Hello good looking boy" in Spanish, and so for the rest of it we put our newly learned phrase to good use, getting what I am sure (or should I say I hope) were some very appreciative responses from everyone we said it to in the process. We did, unfortunately, have one slight mishap before lunch. One member of the group was waving at some children when he noticed a truck coming towards him very fast. He did the only thing possible and swerved the bike, falling off and injuring his wrist badly. He was a true hard man though, because, extremely commendably, he pushed through the pain, got back on his bike, and managed to finish the entire ride. That is commitment for you.

We arrived at our campsite in Pisac at 4pm, after a short detour via the market where we stocked up on as much random Peruvian table, head, body, and other wear as we could. Camping. This was another thing that had been a slight worry of mine before the trip. I am not a camper. That is, I don't do it. Ever. The last time I "camped" was at the age of 16 after finishing my GCSEs, in my friend Nicol's back garden. Even then I only agreed to it because I thought that I could sneak my new boyfriend into the tent for a kiss when everybody else was asleep. Oh, and we always had the keys to the back door and so didn't need to worry about toilets, or tooth brushing, or washing, or any of the other things that suddenly became very important on that first night in a campsite in Peru.

As it happened though, on arrival at the campsite all our worries left us. The tents were set up ready and waiting for us, and there was, wait for it, a shower block. Luxury. That first night after a stunning dinner cooked by chef extraordinaire Gusto we all got a good nights sleep, and started gearing up for what was to be the first day of hill climbing. We were woken up bright and early the next morning with coffee in bed and the sound of all manner of farmyard animals (or more accurately by our guides Juan Carlos and Aron making silly noises and pouring coffee for us), and by 8.30 were packed up and back on our bikes.

The cycling began well for most of us, winding gently upwards from Pisac on a smooth tarmac road giving great views out into the countryside. The sun was shining and everyone was feeling good. Unfortunately, after about 3kms we stopped when we realised we had lost one of the group, my room mate Bryony. Bryony has asthma and at the beginning of the climb had panicked a bit about the altitude (we had begun that morning from 2,800m and would be climbing up to 3,800m before cycling down to our campsite that evening), and had suffered a mild asthma attack. In the circumstances it was decided that she should probably stay in the bus that was following us until lunchtime to give herself a chance to calm down, and that she could start cycling again when the downhill began at lunch.

So, up and up we went, the views getting more and more spectacular, until we came to our first stopping place, the end of the road so to speak. This was the point at which we would say goodbye to tarmac for the remainder of our trip. The route from here on in was to be a dirt road with a liberal coating of boulders and rocks thrown in. This was where the real cycling was to begin. But, on that sunny morning, the beauty of the view, the excitement about what lay ahead for us, were all that we were thinking about.

For the rest of the morning we continued upwards. The road deteriorated very quickly and the cycling became more and more difficult, but surprisingly enough all the training (or in some people's (ie. my) case the excessive consumption of chocolate before setting out that morning) started to kick in, and pretty much everyone managed to cycle the next 20km all the way up to 3,800m successfully. By the end of the morning, however, the altitude had begun to catch up with some of us. A couple of people were feeling pretty ill, and I had terrible stomach pains. After lunch we were driven the last 400m up to the top of the mountain (to help aviod any more altitude sickness) and we were then let loose for the final, freezing, 40km downhill to our campsite for that evening.

After lunch my tentmate Bryony got back on her bike and started cycling again. I cycled with her to keep her company and make sure she was OK, and for the first 30km or so all went well. After about 2 hours the whole group gathered again and Juan Carlos told us that we were nearly at the end of the day. All we had to do was cycle through one little town and then another 6km or so down the mountain, and we would be at our campsite. Bryony seemed fine at this point, and was chatting away to a couple of the guys from the group, so I went off ahead with some of the others, picking up speed as I went. After 10 minutes or so we all stopped again, and it was here that we heard the news that a lady had fallen off her bike, and that it was quite a bad fall. We knew immediately it was Bryony. As it happened, her wheel had hit a raised manhole cover in the town we cycled through, she had fallen straight over her handlebars down on her face, had cut her face very badly, and had to have three of her front teeth taken out. That was her trip over. She was ambulanced straight back to Cusco that evening, and she stayed there for the rest of the trip. That evening when we reached our campsite we were all pretty subdued and upset about what had happened, and we were all very very worried about Bryony. We had an early dinner and were in bed by 8.30pm.

The next morning dawned bright and sunny again, and we all woke up with the sun bright and early to another great view. Another thing that really struck me about camping was that our surroundings always looked completely different when we woke up in the mornings compared to the way they looked when we arrived there the evenings before. This site was particularly beautiful, on a mountain ledge, our tents pitched inside the walls of what must have been an old Andean farmhouse.

The third day of cycling was to be the most difficult of the trip - the first 30km up and downhill, followed by a 33km uphill all the way. I personally was very worried that morning, not only about the cycling but also still about how Bryony was doing, and the general mood was again pretty subdued from the whole group. We set off in the blazing sun at about 8.30am. The first part of the day was a hot and dusty but relatively leisurely ride mostly downhill to a very pretty little town called Puertocambo where we stopped for a break and to take some pictures. After that, at 12pm or so, the sun went in, we put more clothes on, and we started our climb. Up the never ending road, into the cloud forest. It went on and on and on, got colder and colder, and never seemed to end until three hours or so later when we finally came to the sign we had been looking for - "Tres Cruces Mirador 5km". The sign was music to our eyes, and the final 5km was some of the most spectacular cycling I have ever done. We were cycling right in the clouds but when we looked down we could see the mountains laid out in all their glory below the clouds, we knew that we had got there all by ourselves, and it was just amazing. I arrived (in the stragglers group of course) to the top of the mountain and our lunch stop at about 3pm to beer and cheers.

After that we all climbed back into the bus for the final 13km to our campsite. One of the most beautiful places in the whole of Peru, if not the whole of the world. It was called Tres Cruces and is in Peru's Manu National Park, which is apparently the best preserved biosphere in South America. What makes Tres Cruces so amazing is that when the clouds clear just at the right moment, you can see three sunrises in the morning. Unfortunately we didn't get to experience this because the clouds didn't clear, but just being there was a truly fantastic experience no less. It felt like we had cycled to the top of the world, albeit one with a toilet tent!

The campsite that night was the highest altitude we slept at, 4000m. And most of us felt it. It is a strange feeling when the exertion just of climbing into a sleeping bag makes you out of breath, but that was the extent to which we were affected by the altitude. At one point during the night I woke up to hear my heart beating at about three times its normal speed, and it was a pretty scary feeling. We all made it through the night though, and woke up yet again at about 4.30am to the sound of nothing but the clouds sliding past the doors to our tents. I drank my first cup of coffee that morning sitting on a stool looking out over the edge of the mountain, and feeling completely and utterly at peace with myself and with the world. If only I had known what was in store for us that day I might have been slightly less chilled out....

When I first read the itinerary for the Andes to Amazon ride, day four sounded like the day for me. 70km and 3000m downhill, through the clouds and down into the jungle. "Downhill", I thought. "Easy". How wrong I was. Juan Carlos our guide had kept talking the previous day about the challenge to come, and thinking that we had managed the difficult bit, we (or maybe just I) had scoffed at his words. We set out again at about 8.30 that morning, in the clouds and the rain, back slightly uphill for the first hour, and looked forward all the while to getting down and into the thicker air once again. By 10am we had started the downhill, and I quickly began to realise what JC had meant by the challenge. The roads were terrible, made completely out of boulders and rocks, and hence very bumpy. Whilst this didn't matter so much going uphill because we were going so slowly, it was simply treacherous on the way down. I had never done proper mountain biking before, and had pretty much no experience of going down on that type of terrain. On top of it all we were cycling on mountain roads and one slight wrong move would have us over the edge.

After three hours or so the muscles in my arms were agony from holding so tightly onto the breaks, and every boulder I cycled over felt like I was drilling the pavement away with one of those heavy duty drills you see workmen using. When we stopped for a break I asked JC how long it was until lunch and he told me another 2 hours. I nearly cried. In fact, over the next two hours I did cry a fair few times, or to be fair every time I cycled over a rock, which was all the time. The biking guides though were absolutely amazing. One could see that I was having a hard time of it and every time a difficult part came up in the road he would cycle ahead of me to show me how to get around it. With his help and some magic muscle cream, I made it to lunch and eventually to that evening's campsite.

And again, what a campsite it was. In complete contrast from where we had stayed the evening before, this place was right in the middle of a lush, green, warm, jungle, on a local football pitch next to a farmyard. We were all absolutely elated when we made it there, and I felt almost slightly drunk on the thick, oxygen filled air. When we arrived, half the group went off for a dip in the local river whilst the rest of us who had unwisely forgotten to bring our swimming costumes with us had our first shower of the ride. It felt amazing to be cleanish again, and that evening was a fun and relaxing one spent chatting and drinking beer safe in the knowledge that this time we really were over the worst of it, and that it really would be downhill all the way again the next day.

The final day dawned with a pancake breakfast courtesy of Gusto, and when we had packed up the tents it was back on the bikes for us through the steamy hot jungle. The terrain was much the same as the previous day but I had my magic muscle cream and bandages on and had obviously managed to pick up some mountain biking skills from the day before, so was coping. We had lunch by a cold, clear river which was being used by lots of the local Peruvians to wash themselves and their clothes in, and we were all so hot by the time we got there that we jumped in to join them, clothes and all for those of us without swimming costumes (who were obviously by now wishing that we had brought them with us). Before we knew it lunch was over and, with a mixture of sadness and joy, we set out on the final 12km.

After a fairly flat start, the road again began to climb up and up, until we reached a view point. From where we were we could see our finishing point, the jungle town of Atalaya framed by the mountains we had just cycled over and on the banks of a big river. We were tired out from the mental and physical exertion of the past few days, and feeling strangely sad that it was all pretty much over, but we were elated that we had finished the ride. After taking some pictures of the final hill, and after thanking the guides without whom we could never have done it, we set off on the final downhill to the town.

On the last night we camped on another football pitch, this time belonging to Atalaya's elementary school. The people in this part of Peru are very very poor, and in return for letting us stay at their school, the guides had collected money from us and had bought toothbrushes, toothpaste, pads and crayons to give to the school children earlier on that day. As the sun set we therefore gathered around whilst Juan Carlos and Aron made the presentation. It was a great way to end what had been the ride to top all rides.

My Andes to Amazon ride was a fantastic experience. It was challenging and difficult at times, but the entire process, from the fundraising to the training to the ride itself was incredibly fulfilling. From this ride I have learned that no matter how difficult things can seem at the outset, and no matter what hurdles one has to come through to achieve them, it is possible to do almost anything if you put your mind to it. In the process I have also raised nearly GBP9,000 for the Cambodia Trust and hopefully, in future years, other amputees or disabled people who have been helped by the Cambodia Trust back into normal life will be able to do something similar for the Cambodia Trust themselves.

Fiona Callanan, Cambodia Trust supporter