HOLD YOUR HORSES
When I left university, I flew to Argentina, spent my savings on a horse, and rode it into the high Andes. A friend rode alongside me, but we didn’t want a guide: we wanted a test. Two months later, we spilled back out through the foothills, dazed and bedraggled, about 1,000 miles north of where we’d set off.
Along the way, we both vacated the saddle and began to walk – fearful that, at over 4,000 metres above sea level, our horses were struggling for breath. So our horseback adventure was really a long string of high-altitude endurance walks, threading for miles between ancient volcanos and across blinding salt pans in search of water to keep the four of us alive.
I now accept that it was a feckless journey into a lifeless wilderness. But the experience revealed to me the limits of my own endurance, and offered a glimpse of what motivates people when they set themselves a challenge that will take pain and hardship to overcome.
INTO THE UNKNOWN
When we first planned the trip, I didn’t think I
