Blind since age of 10, Terry Garrett can’t play soccer, basketball or drive. But he made a pact with himself about how he’d view his disability. “I don’t let my blindness control me — I control my blindness,” he said.

This June, Garret was 7,710 feet above the sea level at Machu Picchu (Peru) along with five visually impaired teenagers and Erik Weihenmeyer, the first blind person to climb Mount Everest.

Before the trip, Garret raised 4,000 (approximately Rupees 1,80,000) for the trip by hosting “An Evening with Terry Garrett” at a church, playing his trombone, singing and telling jokes for donations.

The adventure certainly wasn’t a walk in the park. The trail often had sheer drop-offs to one side or the other. The teens hiked six days — about seven to eight miles a day at 10,000 to 14,000 feet — with impressive elevation gains along the way, sometimes up to 3,000 feet in two hours. “I was tired,” Garrett said. “Some of those days, you just wanted to drop in your tent and go to sleep.”

When the group finally reached Machu Picchu peak, He absorbed the scene with all his senses. Guides minutely described the view, and he could mentally construct a picture.

The trip taught him and others leadership skills and allowed them to forge friendships that he believes will last a lifetime. In fact, the group members already are planning an even more ambitious outing for next summer - Climbing Africa’s highest peak, the 19,340 foot Mount Kilimanjaro.

Garret has more to him. The day after he returned from Peru, he attended a cycling camp at the Olympic Training Centre. He wants to compete in track cycling events at the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing.

He wants to be an astronaut too. “Except for driving, I don’t think I have any limitations,” he declares.