CHALLENGE FOUR;
TREK; MACHU PICCHU, PERU - complete - October 23rd 2017
Story time again – second one this year, what’s wrong with me?
Anyways - Challenge 4 came around quickly enough after the Marathon fun in April. I was a little bit wary about this for many reasons… Firstly, I had to pull out of the cricket season due to my continuous knee issue that made Challenges 2 & 3 that little bit more difficult (because who am I to do things the easy way?) and secondly, in the week leading up to the challenge, I was full of the cold which was just wonderful – blocked nose, sore throat, coughing + impending altitude adjustment was a great recipe for disaster..
In usual Liam manner, we had the last minute chaos that resulted in me hiring a sleeping bag the DAY BEFORE we left but apart from that minor hiccup, I headed down to London on Friday 13th (oohhhhhh) and had almost 12 hours to kill at Heathrow (my colleague Lesley who was also doing this challenge, making the right call and getting the afternoon flight down.) Luckily for me, I was about 3 weeks behind in Neighbours & Home and Away so I managed to crack on with catching up before playing a game that was invented by Jo Linklater & Myself 2 and a half years ago before Kilimanjaro; ‘Spot a Stranger’. The concept is pretty simple – Charity Challenge allow you to see the contact details of those who are on the challenge with you (if you let them publish the info) and as a result, we had a Facebook group of 13 members in place prior to us even meeting each other! I failed miserably however in my attempts to Spot a Stranger (the 10 hours of alcohol had absolutely nothing to do with it) as I received a text from Liz to say she was in the airport and also playing the same game – tapping on random guys who may have been me (hahaha). Regardless, she found me and over the next few hours, our wee area in the Flying Chariot filled with more and more challengers – Linda, Amanda, Diane, Lesley, Jenny, Steff, Amanda the Second, Sharon & Jill all found us along with a special shout-out here to Carla who followed my directions to the bar and couldn’t see us… The reason? She was in Terminal 4 and not Terminal 2 muhahaha.
The flight to Columbia was good as Charity Challenge had done well to keep all challengers in the same area of the plane and thus, we were able to meet those whose names weren’t on ‘The List’ along with my roommate for the week Phil who was on the list but decided to crack on and go through security before collecting his t-shirt from the Charity Challenge rep!!!! ;p. We then had a short flight to Cusco on the Saturday afternoon (time difference was 6 hours) and we were greeted by a lanky lad called Douglas Stewart - £10 to the first person who can guess where Doug’s originally from!? After a quick bus ride to Hotel Samay, we were greeted with a 3 course lunch which was absolutely ideal before Doug told us the do’s and don’ts given that our bodies have just been plonked into a city 3,300m above sea level. Rule 1 – ‘Do not over exert yourself, you will be short of breath very easily right now’… 10 minutes later, we all take our bags up to our rooms and a few of us decided to take the stairs…. 3 flights up and we’re all breathing out our a**** ha – yup, that’s the kind of group we were. Doug gave us a wee tour of Cusco on the Saturday evening and again a buffet meal was on the cards for tea, this time accompanied by a local band giving it big ones with the guitars & pan pipes and some sort of story being told by dancers that I don’t think any of us understood.
On the Sunday, it was time for our first trek – the bus took us to our starting point before we were ditched in the middle of nowhere and used our best Bear Grylls efforts to find our way home… No I joke – our Peruvian guide Fisher led the way and 3 hours later we found ourselves back in the main plaza in Cusco. So far – the blocked nose & cough was rough but I was alright. By this point, 3 Canadians (Jay, Celjan & Scott) had also joined us on our Challenge. Sunday night was where the real fun began as Doug broke down our itinerary for the week ahead and proceeded to confuse the heck out of us, giving us extra bags on top of what we’d already brought with us – each bag having a specific purpose and I’m not going to go into the contents of each bag as I’m still confused just thinking about it. The important thing is, we got there and it worked out (just).
Monday came and we hopped on the bus and headed off to the Lares Valley which was around 3 hours away. The bus journey was epic – basically driving around the sides of mountains with sheer drops to the side… I felt really sorry for those who suffered from travel sickness – looking at the drops was even giving me sweaty palms! The bus then took a short stop in a small market up in the mountains – the purpose of this was to buy things like bread, popcorn, fruit, coca leaves etc to pass on to isolated families we would meet while trekking – before we arrived at our starting point which was actually a Hot Springs area. Despite Doug’s best warnings that we were there to trek & not go into Hot Springs, a handful of us got our kit off and cracked on. It was the first time I’d experienced a hot spring and it was fantastic ha – the first pool was stinking with Sulphur or something but the second one was absolutely ideal and I could’ve happily spent 4 days in there but no… 10 minutes and we had to get out, grab lunch and off we went for day 1 of trekking. The trek was steady going but we weren’t racing along. At various points (on this day and the rest of the trek), we were greeted by various individuals or families either stopping by and saying hi (and thus receiving an Orange / Popcorn etc as previously mentioned) or selling items in which they’d personally made – keeping us right on what was legit and what had been factory processed. The trekking pace considerably quickened however a couple of hours into the trek as the rain started and decided not to stop the rest of the day – wonderful. We arrived at a school area in the village of Cuncani which was handy as the tents were set up outside but we had access to the toilet facilities. More importantly however, after a day of trekking in the rain, Steff – a fellow Kilimanjaro trekker – and me discussed the possibility of Milo (hot chocolate) waiting for us at camp. We both had similar experiences on Kili where the stuff had to be rationed so it lasted the week (it’s that good) and to our delight, that beautiful green tin was on the table as we got to camp along with some hot cheese pastries & guacamole – crazy haha. We were all ‘fed and watered’ by the back of 7 which was far too early to go to bed & Natalie brought out a boxed version of ‘Catchphrase’! hahaha – brilliant. You learn a lot about your fellow campmates in your ‘downtime’ and this was a belter – I was the host for the game and my sole rule was pretty simple.. The Catchphrase is on the back of the card, if you don’t get it word for word… YOU’RE FROZEN OUT! Natalie sadly was the biggest loser of this rule, regularly close but not close enough, leaving the door open for her other half Onur (pronounced by Natalie whenever she needed something to the tone Onnnnuuuuurrrr) to sneak in for a correct answer and he won easily. Once everyone was bored of Onur winning, we moved onto some card games that Scott looked after before calling it quits for the night.
Tuesday arrived and we woke up to snow on the mountains ahead of us while a few folk were beginning to feel the side effects of being at high altitude. I want to point out here how sorry I felt for Phil that night, our ‘Doctor’ Angel (I’m not convinced he was a Doctor.. Or an Angel but that’s okay) – gave me a lemon juice concoction to drink the night before that he said would put me to sleep and I’d wake up with no cold. Incorrect. I spent all bloody night coughing my lungs out!! Thankfully, Amanda was on hand with ginger sweets that blitzed me in the mornings and got some air in my lungs. I also want to give Diane a thanks here also – Diane introduced us to Reiki which is a form of natural healing by channelling positive energies (I think that’s the best way to describe it?!) and this lass is a crazy one… I kid you not, whenever she stood over me and started channelling these energies, I could breathe through my nose with no issues. None. Zilch. Nada. Unsure if she’s actually called Diane or God. She gave me a stone to keep with me the rest of the trek and I’m sure it’s the reason I had no real issues on the Challenge. The trek on this day was unreal – scenery was incredible as we meandered our way through the mountains and over one of the passes to another village called Huacahuasi which was located just after a waterfall and ran alongside the river. Alpacas & Llamas were tenfold on this day, roaming the mountains without a care in the world. Would happily come back as an Alpaca in a future life.
Wednesday was a strange day – it was another early start as we headed upwards. A steep altitude gain of about 1,000m was on the cards and we had sun, rain and hail all within half an hour at lunch time along with a crazy pass at over 4,600m just after we’d eaten at lunch... Great timing that. This was a tough day on the legs as it was basically upwards all morning before the pass resulted in 3 hours of downwards trekking towards the bus that took us to our campsite for the night at Ollantaytambo. We found ourselves at a cushty wee campsite but unfortunately the altitude here was about 2,800m and the place was full of beasties… Flies, beetles, spiders, the lot – we get there and Fisher tells us to make sure our tents are shut when we head for food… Yet every tent on arrival was wide open – ACE. Not only that, there was a ruddy train that went right past the campsite every half hour and tooted its horn EVERY TIME haha. The atmosphere was a bit more relaxed on the Wednesday night as we knew our goal of Machu Picchu was in front of us tomorrow and we were beginning to say our goodbyes to various Peruvians who had stayed with us the last 3-4 days. Not only that, it was Amanda’s birthday and they had made her a cake!! A few bevs were consumed alongside it and off we went to sleep as our starting time the next day…. 4.30 AM!!!!
Thursday arrives, we faff around with the aforementioned bags and we headed to the train station which took us to KM104 – the starting point of our final day of trekking. The train effectively dropped us off at the side of the track (I kid you not) but the scenery again was nuts, surrounded by massive mountains all around you making you feel like an ant and off we headed. The trek on this day was a bit edgy – we were basically walking on the sides of mountains and the drop to your right all day was mental ha. I believe I read somewhere that in total you climb up 3,000 steps throughout the day – they wouldn’t be far wrong and some of them are very steep, very short in length and my size 12 boots were making me **** it. We stopped for lunch at a waterfall in the middle of the forest which was fantastic before another 3 hour hike towards the Sun Gate which would be our first sighting of Machu Picchu. Here is where I’d like to mentioned ‘The Trek of Lies’. On various stages of the trek, between Doug & Fisher – we were consistently lied to haha.. Whether it was about food on a menu, the length of the days trek, altitude reached etc. Everything we got told was a lie! None of this was more evident on the final day where we climbed the ‘Monkey Steps’ – 50 steps or so that were so big and steep you had to climb them like a monkey on all fours. At the bottom of these steps we were told ‘At the top, that is it, challenge complete’…. LIES. We were then faced with another 15 minutes of steps and when we stopped here, I again take out the GoPro only to be told by Fisher that ‘No, this is not the Sun Gate’ – when in fact, it was and thank **** I ignored him and kept the GoPro on as everyone’s reactions when we came through the Sun Gate was absolutely amazing. The sheer size of the Machu Picchu site is incredible and whatever I had expected to see at this point, I was totally off the mark. It’s huge. There’s no other way to describe it. The challenge was complete.
Something else huge that happened here however – Onnnnuuuuur popped the question to Natalie! Ha – she did say yes thankfully despite being faced a Haribo ring but I can confirm this has since been upgraded so congratulations to both of them again. We all await our invites to the big day ;p.
We stayed in a hotel at the bottom of Machu Picchu that night in a small area that genuinely looked like Benidorm – it was very tourist orientated. With a 7am start the next day however, we chose not to go out on a tour of the bars and instead stayed at the restaurant and had a few bevs there. The next shout-out on the blog goes to Krystyna here; Scott bought a round of Pisco shots (the local drink there) which I am convinced was just lighter fluid mixed with tequila and did not come in shot glasses but half-filled wine glasses. As you do, me and Scott seen it away in one go (and personally, almost seen it back up – it was rank! Ha).. Then as we looked down the table, only one other empty glass could be seen and the quietest lass on the trek quickly became the biggest legend in my eyes, Krystyna basically downed it, shrugged her shoulders and went back to the wine!! I then want to thank Kate who ensured our glasses were always full and the reason why most folk appeared worse for wear come 7am the next day! Hahahahahaha.
Fisher led the tour the following day and it was time to head back to Cusco and have our final meal as a gang. We received our medals from Doug and all gave our various ‘thank-you’s before Jay came away with the greatest peace of literature I have ever heard – it brought a tear to my eye and I will get a copy of it one day!! A few of us did manage the courage to crack on with one more night out despite Friday’s exploits and would you believe it, quiet Krystyna was the last women standing at as her, Onur & myself boogied away in some Peruvian nightclub until 4am ha – I can’t help myself can I?
The Saturday / Sunday travelling was rough but Sunday afternoon was proper ‘goodbye’ time and it’s always a strange feeling. You meet 20 odd folk, all with the same goal as yourself and doing wonderful things for charity while they’re at it.. Spend a week and a half doing everything with them, sharing everything and learning about different cultures with them and 10 minutes later, they’re all gone and you rarely see any of them again… It is weird but I swear down, the best part of these challenges is the folk you meet. That’s the 3rd Charity Challenge I’ve done and I can safely say I have gotten on with every single person on the Challenges and would consider every one of them friends and not just acquaintances. The Whatsapp group is certainly keeping the link there after this challenge.
On a personal note - my aim this year was to get between £12,000 and £12,500 raised for CLIC Sargent so to those who have not yet fallen asleep reading and have helped me get the £12,151 mark, thank you all. We’ve had a good laugh this year with Battle of the Bands nights taking over the usual Race Nights etc. Next year, I have nothing big planned yet. I have booked on to Stage 2 of the London Classics in July next year – a 100 mile cycle from London to Surrey & back and hopefully a few folk will join me on that challenge and some of my London to Paris pals will also get on the saddle too! After that, I’m open to suggestions… Haha.
Thanks for reading!!
Liam.
www.justgiving.com/liamthom
www.facebook.com/liamthomcharity
www.liamthom.weebly.com
Anyways - Challenge 4 came around quickly enough after the Marathon fun in April. I was a little bit wary about this for many reasons… Firstly, I had to pull out of the cricket season due to my continuous knee issue that made Challenges 2 & 3 that little bit more difficult (because who am I to do things the easy way?) and secondly, in the week leading up to the challenge, I was full of the cold which was just wonderful – blocked nose, sore throat, coughing + impending altitude adjustment was a great recipe for disaster..
In usual Liam manner, we had the last minute chaos that resulted in me hiring a sleeping bag the DAY BEFORE we left but apart from that minor hiccup, I headed down to London on Friday 13th (oohhhhhh) and had almost 12 hours to kill at Heathrow (my colleague Lesley who was also doing this challenge, making the right call and getting the afternoon flight down.) Luckily for me, I was about 3 weeks behind in Neighbours & Home and Away so I managed to crack on with catching up before playing a game that was invented by Jo Linklater & Myself 2 and a half years ago before Kilimanjaro; ‘Spot a Stranger’. The concept is pretty simple – Charity Challenge allow you to see the contact details of those who are on the challenge with you (if you let them publish the info) and as a result, we had a Facebook group of 13 members in place prior to us even meeting each other! I failed miserably however in my attempts to Spot a Stranger (the 10 hours of alcohol had absolutely nothing to do with it) as I received a text from Liz to say she was in the airport and also playing the same game – tapping on random guys who may have been me (hahaha). Regardless, she found me and over the next few hours, our wee area in the Flying Chariot filled with more and more challengers – Linda, Amanda, Diane, Lesley, Jenny, Steff, Amanda the Second, Sharon & Jill all found us along with a special shout-out here to Carla who followed my directions to the bar and couldn’t see us… The reason? She was in Terminal 4 and not Terminal 2 muhahaha.
The flight to Columbia was good as Charity Challenge had done well to keep all challengers in the same area of the plane and thus, we were able to meet those whose names weren’t on ‘The List’ along with my roommate for the week Phil who was on the list but decided to crack on and go through security before collecting his t-shirt from the Charity Challenge rep!!!! ;p. We then had a short flight to Cusco on the Saturday afternoon (time difference was 6 hours) and we were greeted by a lanky lad called Douglas Stewart - £10 to the first person who can guess where Doug’s originally from!? After a quick bus ride to Hotel Samay, we were greeted with a 3 course lunch which was absolutely ideal before Doug told us the do’s and don’ts given that our bodies have just been plonked into a city 3,300m above sea level. Rule 1 – ‘Do not over exert yourself, you will be short of breath very easily right now’… 10 minutes later, we all take our bags up to our rooms and a few of us decided to take the stairs…. 3 flights up and we’re all breathing out our a**** ha – yup, that’s the kind of group we were. Doug gave us a wee tour of Cusco on the Saturday evening and again a buffet meal was on the cards for tea, this time accompanied by a local band giving it big ones with the guitars & pan pipes and some sort of story being told by dancers that I don’t think any of us understood.
On the Sunday, it was time for our first trek – the bus took us to our starting point before we were ditched in the middle of nowhere and used our best Bear Grylls efforts to find our way home… No I joke – our Peruvian guide Fisher led the way and 3 hours later we found ourselves back in the main plaza in Cusco. So far – the blocked nose & cough was rough but I was alright. By this point, 3 Canadians (Jay, Celjan & Scott) had also joined us on our Challenge. Sunday night was where the real fun began as Doug broke down our itinerary for the week ahead and proceeded to confuse the heck out of us, giving us extra bags on top of what we’d already brought with us – each bag having a specific purpose and I’m not going to go into the contents of each bag as I’m still confused just thinking about it. The important thing is, we got there and it worked out (just).
Monday came and we hopped on the bus and headed off to the Lares Valley which was around 3 hours away. The bus journey was epic – basically driving around the sides of mountains with sheer drops to the side… I felt really sorry for those who suffered from travel sickness – looking at the drops was even giving me sweaty palms! The bus then took a short stop in a small market up in the mountains – the purpose of this was to buy things like bread, popcorn, fruit, coca leaves etc to pass on to isolated families we would meet while trekking – before we arrived at our starting point which was actually a Hot Springs area. Despite Doug’s best warnings that we were there to trek & not go into Hot Springs, a handful of us got our kit off and cracked on. It was the first time I’d experienced a hot spring and it was fantastic ha – the first pool was stinking with Sulphur or something but the second one was absolutely ideal and I could’ve happily spent 4 days in there but no… 10 minutes and we had to get out, grab lunch and off we went for day 1 of trekking. The trek was steady going but we weren’t racing along. At various points (on this day and the rest of the trek), we were greeted by various individuals or families either stopping by and saying hi (and thus receiving an Orange / Popcorn etc as previously mentioned) or selling items in which they’d personally made – keeping us right on what was legit and what had been factory processed. The trekking pace considerably quickened however a couple of hours into the trek as the rain started and decided not to stop the rest of the day – wonderful. We arrived at a school area in the village of Cuncani which was handy as the tents were set up outside but we had access to the toilet facilities. More importantly however, after a day of trekking in the rain, Steff – a fellow Kilimanjaro trekker – and me discussed the possibility of Milo (hot chocolate) waiting for us at camp. We both had similar experiences on Kili where the stuff had to be rationed so it lasted the week (it’s that good) and to our delight, that beautiful green tin was on the table as we got to camp along with some hot cheese pastries & guacamole – crazy haha. We were all ‘fed and watered’ by the back of 7 which was far too early to go to bed & Natalie brought out a boxed version of ‘Catchphrase’! hahaha – brilliant. You learn a lot about your fellow campmates in your ‘downtime’ and this was a belter – I was the host for the game and my sole rule was pretty simple.. The Catchphrase is on the back of the card, if you don’t get it word for word… YOU’RE FROZEN OUT! Natalie sadly was the biggest loser of this rule, regularly close but not close enough, leaving the door open for her other half Onur (pronounced by Natalie whenever she needed something to the tone Onnnnuuuuurrrr) to sneak in for a correct answer and he won easily. Once everyone was bored of Onur winning, we moved onto some card games that Scott looked after before calling it quits for the night.
Tuesday arrived and we woke up to snow on the mountains ahead of us while a few folk were beginning to feel the side effects of being at high altitude. I want to point out here how sorry I felt for Phil that night, our ‘Doctor’ Angel (I’m not convinced he was a Doctor.. Or an Angel but that’s okay) – gave me a lemon juice concoction to drink the night before that he said would put me to sleep and I’d wake up with no cold. Incorrect. I spent all bloody night coughing my lungs out!! Thankfully, Amanda was on hand with ginger sweets that blitzed me in the mornings and got some air in my lungs. I also want to give Diane a thanks here also – Diane introduced us to Reiki which is a form of natural healing by channelling positive energies (I think that’s the best way to describe it?!) and this lass is a crazy one… I kid you not, whenever she stood over me and started channelling these energies, I could breathe through my nose with no issues. None. Zilch. Nada. Unsure if she’s actually called Diane or God. She gave me a stone to keep with me the rest of the trek and I’m sure it’s the reason I had no real issues on the Challenge. The trek on this day was unreal – scenery was incredible as we meandered our way through the mountains and over one of the passes to another village called Huacahuasi which was located just after a waterfall and ran alongside the river. Alpacas & Llamas were tenfold on this day, roaming the mountains without a care in the world. Would happily come back as an Alpaca in a future life.
Wednesday was a strange day – it was another early start as we headed upwards. A steep altitude gain of about 1,000m was on the cards and we had sun, rain and hail all within half an hour at lunch time along with a crazy pass at over 4,600m just after we’d eaten at lunch... Great timing that. This was a tough day on the legs as it was basically upwards all morning before the pass resulted in 3 hours of downwards trekking towards the bus that took us to our campsite for the night at Ollantaytambo. We found ourselves at a cushty wee campsite but unfortunately the altitude here was about 2,800m and the place was full of beasties… Flies, beetles, spiders, the lot – we get there and Fisher tells us to make sure our tents are shut when we head for food… Yet every tent on arrival was wide open – ACE. Not only that, there was a ruddy train that went right past the campsite every half hour and tooted its horn EVERY TIME haha. The atmosphere was a bit more relaxed on the Wednesday night as we knew our goal of Machu Picchu was in front of us tomorrow and we were beginning to say our goodbyes to various Peruvians who had stayed with us the last 3-4 days. Not only that, it was Amanda’s birthday and they had made her a cake!! A few bevs were consumed alongside it and off we went to sleep as our starting time the next day…. 4.30 AM!!!!
Thursday arrives, we faff around with the aforementioned bags and we headed to the train station which took us to KM104 – the starting point of our final day of trekking. The train effectively dropped us off at the side of the track (I kid you not) but the scenery again was nuts, surrounded by massive mountains all around you making you feel like an ant and off we headed. The trek on this day was a bit edgy – we were basically walking on the sides of mountains and the drop to your right all day was mental ha. I believe I read somewhere that in total you climb up 3,000 steps throughout the day – they wouldn’t be far wrong and some of them are very steep, very short in length and my size 12 boots were making me **** it. We stopped for lunch at a waterfall in the middle of the forest which was fantastic before another 3 hour hike towards the Sun Gate which would be our first sighting of Machu Picchu. Here is where I’d like to mentioned ‘The Trek of Lies’. On various stages of the trek, between Doug & Fisher – we were consistently lied to haha.. Whether it was about food on a menu, the length of the days trek, altitude reached etc. Everything we got told was a lie! None of this was more evident on the final day where we climbed the ‘Monkey Steps’ – 50 steps or so that were so big and steep you had to climb them like a monkey on all fours. At the bottom of these steps we were told ‘At the top, that is it, challenge complete’…. LIES. We were then faced with another 15 minutes of steps and when we stopped here, I again take out the GoPro only to be told by Fisher that ‘No, this is not the Sun Gate’ – when in fact, it was and thank **** I ignored him and kept the GoPro on as everyone’s reactions when we came through the Sun Gate was absolutely amazing. The sheer size of the Machu Picchu site is incredible and whatever I had expected to see at this point, I was totally off the mark. It’s huge. There’s no other way to describe it. The challenge was complete.
Something else huge that happened here however – Onnnnuuuuur popped the question to Natalie! Ha – she did say yes thankfully despite being faced a Haribo ring but I can confirm this has since been upgraded so congratulations to both of them again. We all await our invites to the big day ;p.
We stayed in a hotel at the bottom of Machu Picchu that night in a small area that genuinely looked like Benidorm – it was very tourist orientated. With a 7am start the next day however, we chose not to go out on a tour of the bars and instead stayed at the restaurant and had a few bevs there. The next shout-out on the blog goes to Krystyna here; Scott bought a round of Pisco shots (the local drink there) which I am convinced was just lighter fluid mixed with tequila and did not come in shot glasses but half-filled wine glasses. As you do, me and Scott seen it away in one go (and personally, almost seen it back up – it was rank! Ha).. Then as we looked down the table, only one other empty glass could be seen and the quietest lass on the trek quickly became the biggest legend in my eyes, Krystyna basically downed it, shrugged her shoulders and went back to the wine!! I then want to thank Kate who ensured our glasses were always full and the reason why most folk appeared worse for wear come 7am the next day! Hahahahahaha.
Fisher led the tour the following day and it was time to head back to Cusco and have our final meal as a gang. We received our medals from Doug and all gave our various ‘thank-you’s before Jay came away with the greatest peace of literature I have ever heard – it brought a tear to my eye and I will get a copy of it one day!! A few of us did manage the courage to crack on with one more night out despite Friday’s exploits and would you believe it, quiet Krystyna was the last women standing at as her, Onur & myself boogied away in some Peruvian nightclub until 4am ha – I can’t help myself can I?
The Saturday / Sunday travelling was rough but Sunday afternoon was proper ‘goodbye’ time and it’s always a strange feeling. You meet 20 odd folk, all with the same goal as yourself and doing wonderful things for charity while they’re at it.. Spend a week and a half doing everything with them, sharing everything and learning about different cultures with them and 10 minutes later, they’re all gone and you rarely see any of them again… It is weird but I swear down, the best part of these challenges is the folk you meet. That’s the 3rd Charity Challenge I’ve done and I can safely say I have gotten on with every single person on the Challenges and would consider every one of them friends and not just acquaintances. The Whatsapp group is certainly keeping the link there after this challenge.
On a personal note - my aim this year was to get between £12,000 and £12,500 raised for CLIC Sargent so to those who have not yet fallen asleep reading and have helped me get the £12,151 mark, thank you all. We’ve had a good laugh this year with Battle of the Bands nights taking over the usual Race Nights etc. Next year, I have nothing big planned yet. I have booked on to Stage 2 of the London Classics in July next year – a 100 mile cycle from London to Surrey & back and hopefully a few folk will join me on that challenge and some of my London to Paris pals will also get on the saddle too! After that, I’m open to suggestions… Haha.
Thanks for reading!!
Liam.
www.justgiving.com/liamthom
www.facebook.com/liamthomcharity
www.liamthom.weebly.com