Alright, another long, adventurous day ahead.

In fact, it was so long that I didn’t actually type up this blog at the end of the night like I normally do and am I actually typing this up the following day.

So, if you were waiting for the blog last night, sorry.

Anyway, here we go…

I woke up bright an early at 6:30am after a very long day yesterday, I was ready and raring to go to see the beautiful Rainbow Mountains located 120km south of Cusco.

Yup, you read that right.   120km.   That’s about a 3 1/2 hour drive each way.

After snagging a quick free breakfast at the hostel, one of the employees from the company came to the hostel to pick me at 7:45.

My travel buddies

So, like with yesterday, I tried to talk to as many people as I could along the way and, considering our group was only myself and 6 other people, it was pretty easy to do.

Our tour guide Nayda used to live in an Amazonian village but now lives in the “big city”.   If she returns home to visit she actually has to put on a traditional Peruvian outfit cause her city clothes would be frowned upon.

Then there’s Tim and his son Oliver.   They’re both from the east side of the UK but dad currently works in Dubai.

They’ve only just arrived a couple of days ago and this was one of the first things they’ve done here in Cusco.

Tim fell ill halfway through the trip.   Not being properly acclimated to the altitude coupled with a bumpy ride and a steep climb up a mountain will do that to you.

I really felt bad for the guy cause you could tell he was putting on a brave face but, man, you could see he was hurting.

Oliver, on the other hand, seemed better acclimated.   He’d just come off 10 weeks volunteering in Costa Rica and now he and his dad had two weeks here in Peru.

There was also a cute couple from the UK, Toby and Marta.   Marta was originally from Barcelona.

Turns out that Toby had also gone to North Korea which may be the only other person I’ve met who has also gone.
Naturally we compared stories about our time there and what our experiences were like.

The other couple on our tour was an older couple, Carlos and Juwta, who have been married for 28 years.   Carlos is retired and Juwta is one year away from retirement.

She’s German.   He’s Peruvian.   They met in the UK and now live in Northern Italy.   How’s that for a mix of countries?

Oh, and their daughter was born in France and their son was born in Switzerland.

Truly a worldly family.

A long bumpy ride

Our tour left at 8am which, when it comes to tours to Rainbow Mountain, is the latest tour leaving Cusco.

Most tours leave at 5am and there’s one that leaves at 3am.

I had originally (reluctantly, I might add) bought a 5am tour with a different company.   I really didn’t want to wake up at 4am and not get a full night’s sleep as I felt that I’d just be a half asleep zombie when I arrived at the mountain.

So, I Googled “afternoon Rainbow Mountain” and, wouldn’t you know, Peru Private Tours popped up in the results.

Their tour was pricier at $79USD instead of the average $45USD for the other tours but I felt leaving at a more reasonable time was worth the extra price.

Earlier I had alluded to the bumpy roads but I don’t think I really expressed how truly bumpy the roads were.

The 7 of us were in a 16 seater minivan that didn’t absorb the bumps well.

The first half of the drive was on paved roads and I remember thinking “damn, the road is so bumpy!”.

Then we hit the dirt road and, holy f*ck, that was bumpy.

There were inexplicably randomly placed speed bumps for no reason that didn’t help the matter.

So, after all that, we finally made it to Rainbow Mountain 3 hours later.

Rainbow Mountain

The colors of the mountains come from the different minerals that are found there.

The yellow color is from zinc, the green from copper, and the red from iron.

The Rainbow Mountains were originally used for mining the different minerals but due to constant demonstrations and protests, the lands became protected.   Just like that, the surrounding area went from being a mining town to a tourism based town.

Also, the Rainbow Mountain didn’t become a full blown tourist attraction until 15 years ago.

People hiking to the nearby glacier were lost and took photos of the colorful mountains and, well, it kind of went viral.

Climbing the mountain

We arrived at 11am just as the groups who had left Cusco at 5am where on their decent.   We were indeed one of the last groups to arrive.

When we arrived I counted about 50 minibuses in the parking lot and when we left a few hours later, we were the only bus still there.

Here at the base of the mountain it was 4700m and the summit was 300m higher.

There are two ways to get up the mountain, by foot or by horse.

If you go by foot, it’s about a 90 minute high up a steadily rising incline and if you pay s/80 ($27), you’ll have a local lead on a horse up the same route.

I chose the horse.

I mean, let’s face it, even in the best of times, I’m not the most in shape person but climbing up a mountain in a high altitude, yeah, there was never a chance.

Surprisingly I was the only one of my 7 member group who chose the horse option.

The horse ride was beautiful.   Just taking in the surroundings gave me a permanent smile.   I mean, it truly was beautiful and the photos you see just can’t justify how beautiful it was.

I arrived at the end of the route in about 45 minutes and just waited for the rest of my group for about a half hour.

When they arrived they all looked so exhausted and I was even more happy with my decision to go with the horse.

Of course, we weren’t quite at the top yet.

There was still a 20 minute hike up a steep incline to get to the summit and we all had to do that as the horses go no further.

By 12:45 we were at the summit.   On top of the world overlooking this wonderful landscape before us.

One of the added benefits to being a later start was there were only a handful of other people here with us so we weren’t shoulder to shoulder with 200 other people as I’m sure was the case with those earlier departures.

An hour later we were on our way down and an hour after that we finally made it back to our minibus.

A late lunch

Although the trek up and down the mountain was done by 3pm, we still had another 4 hours til we got back to Cusco.

We drove through the bumpy dirt roads for about an hour until we reached the restaurant where they had a 3 course meal waiting for us.

Poor Tim did not make it through all those bumps and we had to stop a couple of times for him to, how shall I say this, let things out.

We got a choice of starter and main and I chose a quinoa soup and smoked trout.

Honestly, probably the most healthy food I’ve had here since I started this trip.   It actually was good to eat something healthy cause my stomach was a little upset too from all the bouncing up and down.

For dessert, while the other got a little piece of chocolate cake, I was relegated to a little dish of fruit.

Still, it was healthy.

After lunch, which, let’s be honest was more like dinner considering we were eating at 4pm, we continued our journey back into Cusco.

By 7pm we had finally arrived.

I went back to the hostel, freshened up, cleaned up my very dusty shoes, and headed out for something light to eat.

I knew I wanted to grab another chicken sandwich on gluten free bread for breakfast tomorrow but decided, what the hell, I may as well have another sandwich here for dinner, you know, just keep up with the healthy food theme of the day.

By 9:30 I was all packed up and ready for bed.

Tomorrow would be another early start as I was being picked up at 6:20 in the morning.

Let the adventures continue…