While traveling through Peru we met a couple of people that had done some amazing multi-day treks through the Peruvian Andes. The more I heard about it the more I wanted to go. After some research, a nine day hiking loop called the Huayhuash Trek caught my attention and I was instantly hooked. It was supposed to be one of the most breath-taking treks in the world. There were guided tours but these were expensive and I liked the idea of doing it on our own. We prepared ourselves for three days: We rented equipment, planned the route and bought food for 11 days (just to be safe). 

We had to take three busses just to get to the start of the trail and the next nine days, we were above 4000m. Your dreams become incredibly vivid – almost tangible and even weirder than your normal dreams when sleeping at such high altitudes. I remember waking up and needing a few moments before I realised that it was all just a dream. And no matter how much sleep you get, you never really feel rested the next day. I remember sleeping for 13 hours one night and feeling just as tired the next morning. Every day we had to climb 600-1000m to cross a pass. The highest one was 5060m above sea level. 

It was physically and mentally exhausting. The shoes my girlfriend had rented broke after the first few days and we had to fix them with rope and tape. We experienced everything between rain, hail, sun, heavy winds, snow and thunderstorms. This trek is to this day the most adventurous thing I have ever done in my life and I would do it again in a heartbeat! 

What was most intriguing about this trip was the fact that we met no more than ten people over the course of nine days. We went entire days without seeing another person. Being truly isolated is a weird feeling that’s hard to explain. Somewhere between crushing and liberating. 

I took this photograph on one of those days.