I’d just completed the spectacular four-day Inca Trail hike to Machu Picchu and, drunk on nature, was feeling dangerously invincible. Fresh Peruvian air still rejuvenated my lungs and the brain fog induced by my daily smartphone addiction hadn’t yet crept back in.
The disastrous events that followed began once I turned my phone back on. Responding to a Twitter solicitation for Peru recommendations, a man I’d never met posted: “Go mountain biking down a volcano in Arequipa!”