I found this picture of me in Machu Picchu Peru

While rummaging through my desk drawer I found this picture of me standing just above Machu Picchu, Peru on a bright and sunny June day.
I will never forget this day as long as I live - not for the timeless beauty and mystery of the ancient Inca city - although that was all there.

But because I nearly died in the little town at the foot of the mountain.

It was all going great, after several days of touring and day hikes at the very lofty altitudes around Cuzco and taking the scenic train ride to the base, I was having a terrific time.

The night before we left for the 2 day hike to Machu Picchu we had a fantastic meal, we slept in tents - I'm not a real roughing it kind of guy but was giving it my best and enjoying it tremendously.

When I stepped out of that tent into the Peruvian night I had an experience that would be the peak of my trip.

In the crisp and chilly air I was surrounded by a blackness that can only be found hundreds of miles from any kind of town - in a place where there is no electricity. Black ice in the sky.

My eyes were drawn upwards by a pure blue white light to an alien starfield of millions of brilliant stars of the Southern hemisphere.

There it was - the Southern Cross. Invisible from North America - the cross stood out in the most stunning starlight I've ever seen. The stars, set free from the obfuscation of pollution, city blur, electric lights, and all the other man made junk that blocks the night sky in the civilized world - shone like penetrating lasers in a luminous stillness that bordered on a pure psychedelic vision.

I returned to the tent and fell asleep - the next day would begin a hellish experience that would threaten my life - and push me to the brink of my tolerance.

After breakfast we hiked single file up the mountains. Already at an altitude equal to the Rocky Mountains - we ascended ever higher through the Andes. The view of snowcapped peaks leading down to deep green valleys was a sight that I could not get enough of.

The day got warmer, then got hotter, and I began to feel weak, then sweating profusely, then out of breath, by the time we stopped for lunch I was in the throes of very painful abdominal pain, near throwing up and very dizzy.

Was it food poisoning? Was it altitude sickness? Was I just a wimp? I was entirely too sick to even think of eating - and lay on the grass until the group was on it's way up the mountain.

Hiking the Inca trail is a primeval experience. The trail has been traveled for centuries by the indiginous people and has been made strangely equipped with stone steps, ancient and worn, that lead forever upwards into the clouds.

Though the trails are dirt and lead in winding paths through the thick jungle and open valley passes, then alternate into these endless primitive steps. You find yourself struggling to breath as your journey takes you closer and closer to Dead Woman Pass - the highest point in the hike.

The Peruvian local guides jogged by me, and past me, up and down the steps wearing sandals on their feet instead of any kind of special expensive shoes like we did. They were acclimated and strong and made us feel like we were moving underwater compared to their lightening speed.

For me it was a hellish struggle that just got worse and worse - staring down at the stairs in a blurry haze of pain and sickness - sweating profusely in an environment where staying hydrated is hugely essential - alternating with chills to the bone.

When we reached the camp for the night - they laid me in the tent and the worst night of my life began. As I got worse and worse shivering, sweating, then practically crawling across a rocky ridge through the weeds to a cinder block latrine - open to the freezing mountain night air - and back again - all night.

I could hear the other campers eating in the dinner tent - laughing and enjoying the trip, just like I had been 24 hours ago. The Inca guides brought me hot tea, which I couldn't keep down, and packed bottles filled with boiling water next to me in my sleeping bag.

See, we were miles up a remote mountain. There was no way to be taken to a hospital. There are no roads, no transportation - you are just there. The main guide opened up a kit in a backpack of over the counter and prescription medicines that he had accumulated from previous hikers. We too, gave him all our leftover stuff when we left him to get on the plane to leave at the end of the trip.

Nothing gave me any relief - so I suffered all through the night.

I was asleep when the guide came to the tent in the morning with tea. After seeing how bad off I was it was clear I couldn't continue. We had the highest part of the trail yet to go and another night on the mountain before we would hike into Machu Picchu on the 2nd morning.

They put me on a small horse and for the next five and a half hours I endured the rolling pounding of a horse walking down stone steps back to the camp.

Home safe?

Hardly.

Because the train that comes through 2 times a day - did not have a stop scheduled at the camp. Unless it were flagged down that night at 9pm it would roar on by leaving me, and the guide who was sent along with me to help get me to a doctor in the village at the foot of Machu Picchu.