Machús

My name is María Jesús Rivaya Robles but everybody calls me Machús. I am 38 years old and live in Gijón, Asturias.

I have always been a sports lover and practised handball until I was 18. However, a year before this, I met Emilio at our High School and we have gone on to more mature things.

Three years after we started going out, we were tired of the monotonous city life and so we decided to buy a guidebook with mountain routes. This is when our passion began.

I was a member of the ENSIDESA mountain group in Gijón for a few years. They helped me to discover the breathtaking views of the Asturian mountains, valleys and villages. Thanks to them, I was also able to do the course on alpinism and mountain climbing where I met Sergio, an expert climber and a teacher for the EAMPA. With him and with Emilio, I carried out some unforgettable trekking and climbing experiences, most of which took place in the Picos de Europa.

Machus

My love for adventure and outdoor sports has led me to experiment other activities such as BTT, speleology (Valporquero Cave in León, Cueva sistema Hundidero Gato in Málaga and the Purón in Asturias). Wearing a neoprene suit I have descended some of the main gorges in Asturias

I lived in Cabrales for a year and a half and this is the time when I met some very good friends who I shared some unforgettable adventures with. Taking advantage of the magical natural surroundings of Cabrales, I rode to most of the smaller villages in the area and was able to climb the mythical Naranjo de Bulnes with Emilio.

In 1999, after having worked in Lanzarote for six moths, I travelled the islands in a van and climbed the Teide.

In 2002, I went to Chile on my honeymoon and drove from Valparaiso to the Patagonia in a 4WD with some friends. There, we went trekking in the Torres del Paine Natural Park. Soon after this, we found out that some friends were going to Morocco so we decided to go with them to visit this country that is so close and yet so different.

In 2005, we travelled to India from where we then jumped to Nepal to make one of our dreams come true, to get close to one of the highest peaks on Earth. (Nepal has 8 of the 14 mountains over 8000 km.) For about 11 days, we surrounded the Annapurnas crossing the Thorung at a height of 5416 km.