A COUPLE drank their own urine and thought about eating each other as they tried to survive being lost in the desert for almost a week.

Earlier this month, Mariya Mitkova, 27, and Aaron Morganstein, 33, went missing after they headed out to the Californian desert to go camping.

It was an activity they did often, and on November 12 they travelled to Joshua Tree National Park, about 225 kilometres east of Los Angeles.

The couple was last seen leaving their home in Elysian Valley, a neighbourhood in Los Angeles.

The LA Times reported they withdrew some money from an ATM and bought petrol on the way to the national park, but then disappeared without a trace.

When Ms Mitkova and Mr Morganstein arrived they went on a hike but the sun went down quicker than they expected and they couldn’t find their way back to their car.

They then spent the next six days trying to find civilisation. They had no food and only a small amount of water, and Mr Morganstein said on Reddit they would have resorted to eating parts of each other if it got to that point.

As the days went on, the pair thought they were going to die.

“I silently promised to myself and desert that if I made it out alive I would do my best to make the world a better place,” Ms Mitkova said.

They were found on November 20, by Border Patrol near the US-Mexico border.

The pair have spoken out on Reddit about the desperate measures they turned to in order to survive.

Mr Morganstein said he thought they would have died on day three, but rationing what was left in their backpacks helped them to keep going.

They had left enough supplies at their campsite to survive on for two weeks. The pair had about 26 litres of water at the car, but only took five litres with them on their hike — That was all the water they would drink for six days.

When water started to run dry the pair had to drink their own urine.

“After you rehydrate it’s barely noticeable,” Mr Morganstein said.

“The first round is really bad, but the second cycle of piss is nearly impossible to take down.

“We had to resort to urine on a few occasions after our first run. We decided to drink the pee first and leave yourself fresh water to dilute with piss water in less quantities for future pee rounds.”

Mr Morganstein said drinking urine saved his life.

“It certainly did not hurt and it didn’t taste too bad when you knew it was hydrating,” he said.

Miraculously when the couple was found, they were not in need of emergency medical attention.

While they were haggard, they were not dehydrated or injured.

media_camera Joshua Tree National Park in California. Picture: Supplied

Mr Morganstein said Ms Mitkova did not hold onto much hope for their survival.

“We concluded we were so far from where we thought we were going to be and so deep into a wilderness nobody knows that it was incredibly unlikely for us to last as long as it would take to find us,” he said.

“We concluded our lives were in our own hands only.”

Helicopters flew over the pair, and they tried to get the attention of the pilot by starting fires with a lighter they found in their backpack.

They claimed they lit a fire big enough to warrant criminal charges, but it went unnoticed.

Ms Mitkova talked about her family several times a day and the pair knew they’d be worried as the days dragged on.

“But we realised we couldn’t dwell too much on postulating over what people were thinking or doing in the default world, and we had to focus on getting out ourselves,” Ms Mitkova said.

media_camera Mariya Mitkova. Picture: LAPD media_camera Aaron Morganstein. Picture: LAPD

The couple’s family and friends were trying to find them, and conducted an extensive search party around the Joshua Tree area.

“I had no idea that some of my friends had flown in from around the country to come help comb the wilderness and pass out flyers,” Ms Mitkova said.

“We didn’t know how much this had gotten into the news. We were seeing a lot more air activity starting Monday night and continuing into the next days which made us think that search parties were underway, and (we) kept trying to signal these aircraft to no avail.”

Ms Mitkova told Reddit any arguments the couple had failed in comparison to the challenge of staying alive.

“We had to support each other at all costs,” she said.

“It really put things into context.”

According to the LA Times, the couple was rescued when they stumbled across a mobile phone tower with maintenance workers nearby. The workers contacted Border Patrol.

A friend of the couple, Briana Gonzales, told the LA Times Ms Mitkova said they would have died if they didn’t find help when they did.

Originally published as ‘We drank our own urine to survive’