Miyuki: artist/activist/explorer "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." - Anais Nin

On the first leg of our trip from Lima to Machu Pichu, my Peruvian friend Michelle sat to my right, wearing a bright red sweater, drawing something intricate in her sketchbook. It wasn't until we took our next bus--the one without a toilet, requiring me to pee into a water bottle, in the dark, while the bus barreled down roads built into cliffs--that I sensed our impending doom.

At 6AM, we frolicked through abandoned rustic towns and over precarious foot bridges, but after two hours of walking on a highway adjacent to looming mountains under the blazing Peruvian sun, we were soon exhausted and bored--never a good combination. A local pointed towards the mountain and said, "That's the entrance to the Inca trail!" Eager for a change from the monotonous asphalt, we scrambled up, passing a local guide explaining indigenous plants to a group of hikers. Two hours later, we were lost. We didn’t admit to the truth until sharp, unforgiving bush scratched us and we couldn't find a trail. But then, we heard a radio! I felt a surge of energy and rushed over to the sound, only to find an empty and locked shack surrounded by chickens and a radio eerily playing some mariachi music.

We rationed that the inhabitants of the shack would return soon. But an hour passed while we watched the chickens cluck cluck around us, and still no one showed up. “Let’s try to retrace our steps” Michelle finally said, and just as we were about to give up, we saw a woman! We shouted out to her, but soon learned that the woman was indigenous and could only speak Quechua. After some desperate hand gestures towards the road, she motioned for us to follow her and that's when I experienced the most frightening descent of my life. The old woman, who must have been over 70, had a light brown bowler hat on, with two long black braids tied behind her back with a red ribbon, and was wearing a large blue dress that I thought would get in her way. But she proceeded to descend the mountain with such speed and agility, that we had no time to process our own fear.

Half way down, she mumbled something and started heading back up. We held onto some unreliable saplings as we called up our many thanks and continued with fearful focus and silence until we broke out into real tears of joy at the foot of the mountain.

Later that night, we reminisced about our meeting with the old Quechuan woman who guided us to safety with deep gratitude and a profound respect for the mountains we had undermined.