Kathmandu:

He doesn’t have any kind of fetish for footwear — be it designer or our everyday, simple shoes. He loves the feel of the rocks, pebbles, grass, mud under his bare soles. This person with this unique kind of love is Antonio Peretti aka Tom Perry, very popularly known as the ‘Barefoot Climber’.

Perry was officially named the ‘Barefoot Climber’ in 2000 in Italy and got international recognition in 2002 after climbing Mt Kilimanjaro.

Forty-six-year-old Perry has climbed up and climbed down nearly every mountain of the world sans his boots. He has only recently returned from the base camp of Mt Makalu (5,600m).

Perry, who is an Italian national, started his Nepal barefoot journey from Tumlingtar (400m) on April 2 and has done 130 km and nearly 100 hours of trekking. He also carried an Olympic torch on behalf of the Italian Olympic Committee during this trek.

“I have done it for world peace,” he says.

And is quick to add that his expedition team sought blessings from Pope Benedict XVI and the 14th Dalai Lama before venturing on their adventure.

His logic of going barefoot is “it is natural, politically correct in many cultures since time and walking began”. Perry says that feet are not fragile (a blow to all the foot massage parlours of the world) and can easily be conditioned to be tougher.

For him going barefoot is an “invaluable sensation”.

“I realise that when I am barefoot, the earth transfers her energy to me, and I am spiritually reborn. I feel like another man really. I feel that I am a witness of positive and genuine values,” he says explaining his love.

He climbed Mt Kilimanjaro (6,000 metres), the highest African peak for the first time in 2002, and he says that he wants to send the message of altruism to the world.

In July 2002, he was the attraction for new and very difficult range of tests in South America, on the Andean tableland. “I ran barefoot over the Salar de Ajuni, and then I faced the burning sand of the Atacama desert,” he says.

He has also climbed the Licancabur, a 6,000 metre volcano, and ascended Nevado Sajama, a crest of 6,550 metres (highest Andean mountain in Bolivia) proving that he is a complete mountain climber.

Organiser of Mt Makalu Italian Expedition-2006 Nimanuru Sherpa says besides the ‘sports’ goal, climbing barefoot has a great ethic and social value.

Having passed through some of the most beautiful and harsh terrains of Nepal, Perry says that physical pain is no longer the issue.

And as such he has decided to support a poor child suffering from an unidentified disease at Seduwa.

And this child will not have to go barefoot, thanks to Perry.