Martin's Flows and Spider-bites on the Inka Trail

Martin got a nasty spider-bite causing his right ankle to swell up while hiking the Inka Trail to Machu Picchu (in his grey fivefinger Flows!)

In the mailbag comes the above photo from Martin, who recently took his VFF Flows to Machu Picchu — no minor feat as it took convincing the guides that he'd be okay without ankle support*. It's not often we see the elusive fivefinger Flows. And if you're wondering why Martin's right ankle looks so swollen, well wonder no further:

I bring your attention to my right foot, which if you haven't noticed got a lot bigger than my left on the final day's trek into Machu Picchu. They think I got bitten by a spider. Tourists were so enthralled by my Vibram Five Fingers they didn't even notice my grotesquely, morbidly obese right ankle as they snapped away in glee at my shoes, even at one point making me stand on one foot so they could take pictures of the bottom of my feet. The ankle got a few inches bigger than this before the swelling started to go down. The Inka Trail itself was pretty fun wearing the FiveFinger Flows. My tour guide was actually not going to let me do the hike thinking I would sprain my ankle or something. I told him to give me a chance, and ended up being one of the fastest people. The porters were also highly intrigued by my footwear and I had a lot of curious people ask me how they felt on the hike. Everything was awesome, except downhill in the rain was very tricky. I had to slow down considerably for that so I wouldn't slip, as my feet became quite slippery!

Glad your foot and ankle have recovered. That must have been quite a bite to cause that sort of inflammation! And who would have thought you could camouflage it just by wearing fivefingers! Just one more use for VFFs!

Thanks Martin!

* The more I hear about needing "ankle support" and "arch support," the more I just laugh at how silly people can be. It's as though we'd all be incapable of doing anything but for fancy, constricting and "supportive" shoes or boots! And of course, "studies" need to be done to prove that barefoot running/walking/hiking is safe. Just silly.

About the Author — I founded BirthdayShoes.com in April 2009 on realizing just how much I enjoyed having "free feet" - I mostly wanted to use them for weights, sprints, and plyometrics (I'm not much of a runner!). I'm a Googler by day and minimalist footwear aficionado by night; you can find me 'round Atlanta. If you want to catch up with what I'm doing outside of the site here, follow me on twitter @bdayshoes or @justinno or check out my personal site JustinOwings.com.
Justin Owings+ has written 850 articles and 381 comments.