Our entire South America shoot took 11 days and even more number of flights. We went to two amazing countries and stayed in 7 different hotels. Those numbers sounded tiring but it is nothing compared to 5100 – the number I will never ever forget, the number that almost put us in a coma.

5100 meters is the height, above sea level, of Vinicunca or Peru’s Rainbow Mountain. We were in such high spirits after a successful shoot in Machu Picchu. Little did we know that at this height, altitude sickness will sap all our confidence and energy that will leave us vulnerable throughout the trip.

To give one a perspective, 5100m is quite high. It is higher than any of mountain in the rockies of North America and almost as high as the highest peaks in both Europe and Africa. In fact, Mount Fuji in Japan tops up at a mere 3500m. The problem we had was a combination of negligence and over-confidence. Our guide kept on telling us that the height is 5100m, but we didn’t bother to check what that number meant. We did read reviews that many people suffer from altitude sickness in Cusco, but after a spending a symptom-free couple of days in Machu Picchu without having to acclimatize, we thought we were fine.

We planned to breeze through the shoot in the Rainbow mountain and still shoot in Cusco in the afternoon. But at 3am, my head was pounding already. The next several hours were the hardest moments in my life. From Cusco’s height of 3400m we ascended to 4500m at the Rainbow Mountain base camp. From there we rode a horse for an hour ascending another 400m. The final 200m stretch was a bit narrow that we had to take it by foot. We would only do half of that final 200m, and that first 100m took us 90mins to agonizingly traverse – we were almost crawling. Every step I took I felt that my head is going to explode. It was very cold but at the same time, the sun is so strong it was dehydrating us – but we didn’t feel thirsty. I really had to ask myself if it was worth it and wanted to really give up.

But we persevered, which wasn’t really a good thing because were all showing the symptoms of Acute Mountain Sickness. A little more push and it could easily lead to cerebral edema. We stopped at the first viewing level of the mountain and gave up trekking the second level where there were less people. We just tried to shoot what we can with whatever’s left of us and immediately descended – another 5 hours.

I had to immediately consult with doctors back home when got back some reception and realized the severity of what happened. I swear that up until now, I have the trauma of the experience that I get headaches just by talking about it. This is also why I intentionally made this Rainbow Mountain shoot in Peru, the concluding part of our South America series, because it is just so significant.

There is a video attached to this that shows the accounts of our ordeal. The pursuit of our craft has brought us to the ends of the world and almost at the end of our mortal capabilities. This experience served as a lesson to me and I hope that it will serve as a guide to others.