After our spiritual journey at the Ayahuasca retreat, it was time for an emotional journey: The last ride with our bikes.

Having heard about the ancient amazonian tradition of using Ayahuasca as a healing process we signed ourselves up to see what it was all about. What ensued was an incredibly unique experience we’ll never forget.

We were fortunate enough to meet a French legend Ben who for whatever reasons saw enough potential in us to agree to be our mountaineering guide for a few days. We climbed some peaks, learned some things and most importantly have become super stoked on mountaineering.

Being the only anticipated hike prior to leaving Australia, the 7-12 day Huayhuash circuit had a lot to live up too. We nervously got ready to go unguided for up to 12 days through and around 6000m giants, expecting snowstorms, running out of food and getting lost. Somewhat fortunately, the journey was smooth, and filled with unparralled moments of beauty.

With Scott set up for a comfy ride to Huaraz on the bus, Pat and I took the bikes on the shortest route we could find to meet him in time. The roads were epic but the adventure became one hell of a story.

This third and final leg of our big 24 day hike took us to the infamous Machu Picchu, and then back to Cusco via the Salkantay Trail.

With our first section of the trek completed, we were ready to leave the crowds behind. Not that we’d been swamped by them previously, but apparently on our next section from Yanama to Huancacalle and then on to Santa Teresa we shouldn’t expect to see a single gringo and no more than a few local farmers.

With a massive 200km hike planned and our bodies perfectly out of shape we decided we needed a warm up hike to prepare our bodies. Blindly we chose the Ausangate trek which turned out to be 5 days above 4500m, whoops.

With a barely functioning bike we succumbed to the allure of hot pools and waterfalls and headed off into the unknown. There were some testing times but discovered an incredible, isolated region of Peru rarely visited by anyone.