I remember days of it. Weeks of it. A never-ending backdrop of waterfalls, tumbling and churning off steep cliffs into valleys of wildflowers, brilliant and intertwined and blooming, lining the banks of tumbling creeks of clear water; and the herds of wild horses, their white manes tangled and rumps dusty from the sun-bleached mud, as they dipped their muzzles into the cool streams. The sensation of taking off a backpack after another 7-hour day; feet aching, bones aching, hips bruised and bleeding, but an ethereal joy in it all, of weeks of carrying the weight of all that’s needed on my back. Nights that tasted of cheesy tuna pasta cooked over an open fire, and lukewarm hot chocolate dipped with a coca leaf, as we ate it with a kind of hunger we’d never felt before. We ended each day laying in bundles of hats and scarves and thick sleeping bags, crooked and piled on each other in one tent, all so we could close our eyes and listen to Phoebe read The Alchemist; her voice just barely audible over the sounds of snow and sharp Andean wind billowing against the nylon walls of the tent. And sometimes, the stars, phenomenally scattered above the 20,000 foot horizon, as if only on display for us. Their reflections against turquoise lakes, rimmed with crumbling ancient stone walls. How nothing in the world tasted quite as delicious as glacial runoff, sipped from the palms of cupped, calloused hands.
I remember one meadow in particular, that we reached after an 11 hour climb. It was blanketed in a surreal landscape of brilliant yellow flowers, that seemed to roll all the way to slopes that rose steeply upwards towards the icy faces of the highest peaks in the world; their glaciers looming with a sort of dignity and power in that mauve alpenglow. I dropped my backpack and collapsed on it, exhausted, staring at the massifs before me. Helen brought us cups of tea, and we sat together, sipping quietly, looking up. Wild horses trotted towards our tents and sniffed our backpacks patiently, curious about the meadow’s new inhabitants.
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