Bristol second years trekked 100km in Peru for charity this summer

While most freshers spend first year watching Netflix and sleeping through 9ams, four Bristol freshers spent the year tirelessly fundraising for charity.

Issy, Alicia, David and Emily were raising money for the charity Action Against Hunger as part of a project organised by the Choose a Challenge organisation in partnership with the SU and Bristol RAG.

As part of the trip they were asked to raise £3,000 each over the course of the year, finishing with the six day trek in Peru during the summer.

After months of “Zumbathons”, pub quizzes, bag-packing at supermarkets, “a lot” of cake sales and spending countless weekends dressed as a carrot and a banana on Oxford Street, the now second years reached their targets and managed to raise the incredible amount.

Issy and David

Two members of the team, Issy Denman and Alicia Conti spoke to The Tab about their experiences. The languages students described dressing up on Oxford Street was “one of the most demoralising thing you could ever do with your time”.

“The experience is made even worse when tourists come up to you, take a photo, laugh and run off without donating. When you see someone on the street shaking a bucket at you, please just talk to them. Pity them. Just give them a penny!”

Issy and Alicia at the airport

At the end of August the four Bristol students set off and joined eleven others from Birmingham to spend six days on the 100km trek from Cusco to Machu Picchu, which reached peaks of 4,600km above sea level.

To put this into perspective: With £3,000 you can buy 15,000 Freddo’s. 100km is only a little less than the distance on the route Google maps suggests you take if you were to walk from Bristol Temple Meads to the University of Exeter and 4,600 km is roughly 45 times the height of Cabot tower which is a mere 102m above sea level.

And the weather conditions didn’t exactly make things easier. After dealing with the thirty degree sweltering South American heat at the beginning (“It was like the peak district, but warmer” according to Alicia) by the time they reached the top it was minus 15 degrees and snowing.

As if that wasn’t hard enough they casually trekked through the Peruvian jungle on the way down.

The hardest part about the trip?

Alicia: “Trying to avoid being trampled by donkeys.”

Issy: “And the mosquito bites!”

It’s been three weeks and they’re still covered in bites

What was the scariest moment? Deadly animals in the jungle?!

“At the end of the trip we took a bus ride to some hot springs along a narrow road with a massive drop to one side. The bus was falling to pieces. Everything was held together by tape, there were weird smells and the driver had an obsession with drum and bass. Combine that with the dripping sweat from the heat and it was terrifying. And a bit like Motion!”

Issy and Alicia with Anna and Fran from Birmingham uni

What did you learn from the trip?

“We got to see some of the amazing work that Action Against Hunger are doing there. We also got to learn about local traditions, for example the coca leaves which can be used to make “the nasty white powder” are actually considered sacred to the local community. Even today people chew them or make them into teas to relieve the symptoms of altitude sickness.”

They also learnt the very important difference between an alpaca and a llama after a trip to Mundo Alpaca (yes, that is actually a place).

This is not a llama or an alpaca

In total student teams headed to Peru this summer managed to raised over £162,000 for Action Against Hunger. If you want to find out more about Action Against Hunger and some of their incredible work click here.

And if you want to find our more about Mundo Alpaca click here.