Exhausting silence

There came the point I started feeling I wasn't in such a good shape to do a 12 mile hike off the beaten path without getting exhausted quite soon. I had already separated from the rest of us and just kept going, only stopping to enjoy a certain view, to watch interesting insects or to listen to -well nothing! It was sort of an indescribable feeling to be in the middle of nowhere, without any company, just you and the desert and all you heard was your own breath as well as the sound your shoe made on the path! It's an experience I can only recommend to everybody. Finally I reached the bottom of the valley where water was supposed to be in a river bed - but not in November. I rested on one of those giant round stones in the slim shade of a dead tree until Julia, Katja and Christopher catched up with me and we continued our hike adventure.