What You Don't Know Can't Hurt You

by Brittany Mifsud (Canada)

I didn't expect to find Peru

I like to consider myself relatively brave- I'm always willing to try new things, push my body to new limits, and definitely do not want to miss out on something that I know will be cool just because I'm a little bit fearful. That being said- I'm not about to throw on a wing suit and jump off the side of a mountain. I talk a lot of talk about wanting to sky dive or bungee jump but know for sure that once presented with the opportunity there will be a lot of self-convincing, deep breaths, and probably a small dribble in my pants. The build up towards these situations is almost always worse than once you just get the thing done. I'm positive once your're flying through the air having the time of your life, you do not even consider the possibility of peeing your pants. Which begs the question- If you don't know that you are about to be in danger, or even that you are in danger currently, is that better than knowing and planning for the potential risks? I answered this question for myself while on an 18 day trip through Peru this past summer. I was traveling with a friend and we were trying to squeeze in as much as possible. Despite the fact that we had two days to relax in Cuzco to adjust to the altitude before our 5 day trek to Macchu Picchu, I decided that I absolutely MUST do the strenuous rainbow mountain hike the day before. The pickup from my hostel was at 3:00 AM and we had about a 3 hour drive to the summit. Naturally, I fell back to sleep approximately 45 seconds after getting on the bus. It was the kind of sleep that's deep enough that you're actually resting, but still have a sort of semi-conscious awareness of details that are happening around you. I vaguely remember being stopped for a long period of time and the bus driver leaving the bus, talking to someone, then getting back on and carrying us on our way. I also remember the ride being pretty bumpy, but I officially woke up once we arrived at the base, with hardly an afterthought about the journey and full of excitement for the trek. After we completed the hike- an adventure of its own- we plopped our aching, shaky legs back onto the bus, drank as much water as possible to try and combat our splitting headaches from the altitude, and buckled up for the three hour ride back home. In the broad daylight, however, I realized the bumpy ride from this morning was actually three hours down a dirt road, hardly wide enough for one of these buses to drive comfortably on, let alone one going each direction, with no guardrail of any sort. The narrow road was winding down the mountain with about a 300M drop down an extremely steep rock face to the left. The fact that our driver was doing this now, and in the pitch black earlier this morning was TERRIFYING. No one on the bus was speaking- we were gripping the edges of our seats and flinching as the driver took every steep switchback down at breakneck speed. At one point I realized why we had stopped for so long earlier this morning- a landslide had completely blocked off the road. Men with shovels and small machines were excavating and huge buses were attempting to squeeze through. The fact was clear we were in danger of another landslide at any second- a fellow traveler on my bus was openly sobbing and begging the driver to let her exit the bus and walk because she was certain our bus would roll over the side of the cliff and plunge us to our deaths at any second. I was sweating and repeating to myself over and over that the driver must know what he's doing. We eventually made it back home and I nearly kissed the ground in relief. Moral of the story- I am very happy I did not know what I was facing on the way up. Would I do it again? You better believe it.