It was the stuff of her worst nightmares and most wonderful dreams.

When Pauline Brown decided to trek through the Andes in aid of charity nothing could have prepared her for the gruelling challenges she was about to face.

Gasping for breath and desperately suffering from altitude sickness she pushed herself harder than she had ever been pushed in her life.

She saw companions being taken away to hospital and she trudged along 12 inch paths with sheer mountainside drops.

But amazingly just days after returning to England the Addingham mother of three is already planning her next charity expedition.

Pauline, 44, raised £3,000 with her 12-day trek across the harsh but stunning landscape of Peru - and she saw sights most of us only ever dream of.

The Cancer Research shop worker was in a group of 50 who together raised almost £150,000 for the charity.

Pauline, who is assistant manager at the Ilkley branch, had originally planned to walk the Great Wall of China but was forced to change her plans because of the SARS outbreak.

And she says she had no idea what she was letting herself in for.

She said: "I am on my feet all day at work and I had done a bit of training in the Dales - but even if I had climbed everything in Scotland it would not have prepared me for this."

"It was harder than anyone could ever have told me. But it feels wonderful to have achieved it."

She said the high altitude left the group struggling for breath, and suffering from vomitting, diarrhoea and dehydration.

"At one stage we were walking on a path with 12 inch ledges with sheer drops - and that was quite frightening," she said.

But they walked through magnificant scenery and came away with an overpowering sense of achievement.

She said : "We had to fill in a questionnaire at the end and I put that it was worse than my worst nightmare and greater than anything I had ever achieved in my life."

"I came back saying I would never ever do it again for as long as I live. And then I said to my husband perhaps I might do the Great Wall of China for my 50th."

The trip was a moving experience for the group, all of whose lives had been somehow touched by cancer.

Pauline, who lost her grandmother, grandfather, cousins and mother-in-law to the disease, said: "Everybody was there for a rea

son. It was a very emotional time."

"There was one point where we were sat in middle of one of the ruins when we were told to take ten minutes to think about why we were there. There was so much sobbing it was untrue."

But the group also experienced much happiness on the trek and were amazed by the demeanour of the local children.

Pauline said: "They were filthy and their clothes were full of holes - but they all had a bright smile on their faces no matter what,"

The Cancer Research shop in Ilkley is looking for volunteers to help out, and Pauline stressed: "You don't have to climb the Andes to help cancer research - you can come as a volunteer and do as much good giving a few hours of your time each week."