To Climb or Not to Climb? aka Stubbornness: an Asset or a Health Hazard?

Things I have learned in my travels:

• Peru’s flag bears a striking resemblance to the rainbow flag
• Rick can sense good coffee like some kind of bloodhound
• French people really do say ‘ooh la la’
• Huayna Picchu is 360 metres higher than Machu Picchu

See that peak behind the ruins? That’s Huayna Picchu. You have to go down a bit before you go up so if you’re going to climb it you’re talking about 500 metres of rather vertical stairs.* It is possible that if I had known that in advance I would not have — well okay, no. I am, on occasion, rather stubborn and I do like to climb things… Still. Climbing a thousand feet when you’re already suffering from altitude sickness is possibly ill-advised. Perhaps I should get my stubborn streak checked.** The view from the top was pretty stupendous though. And now I’m back at sea-level it feels like it was worth it.

 

* Rick says that ‘stairs’ is something of a misnomer. He thinks stairs should be consistently wide enough to fit your feet and not be knee height or require ropes to pull you up.

** Then again, that kind of relentless optimism could be useful in my line of work. Am now wondering if pigheadedness is a common trait amongst writers…