Blind Faith

Chile’s Atacama Crossing is an ultramarathon unlike any other: a week-long trek in which competitors endure searing heat, precipitous sand dunes and razor-sharp canyons. This is the story of how blind runner Vladmi Virgilio and first-timer Aniceto Almeida found brotherhood in hell.

- Tom Ward

To say that Aniceto Almeida was tired would be an understatement.

The 51-year-old antiques dealer from Belém, Brazil, had just spent 85 days cycling across three countries to Chile’s Atacama Desert. Along the way, he had carried only a little food and slept in bathrooms or under a plastic tarp by the road. His journey was marked by near-misses with oncoming vehicles, and he almost froze to death when a tyre blew out as he crossed the Andes mountains. But, for Almeida, all of this was merely a warm-up. His biggest trial was yet to come.

The reason for this pilgrimage was not religion – at least, not in the strictest sense. Almeida had traversed the continent to partake in the 13th edition of the Atacama Crossing, a six-stage, 250km race through a desert 50 times more arid than California’s Death Valley. Not only had he spent three months on the road before the race began, he had never completed an ultramarathon before. And he had almost none of the mandatory race kit – the lack of which usually results in disqualification. Something simply drew him to the desert. “I just needed to get there. I was sure something was going to happen,” he’d say later.

At the race camp, Almeida’s arrival caused a panicked flurry of action. Moved by his story, athletes and volunteers raided their backpacks for spares of the race’s 35 required items, including headlamps, whistles and food. Waterproofs were gathered, spare socks unearthed and electrolyte tablets donated.