The last adventure was the amazing Rainbow Mountain, or Montane Vinikunka. We had first seen the natural spectacle on an episode of BBC Race Round the World; it is a phenomenon that only became visible as a result of global warming around 2012 with the retreat of the ice layer on top of the mountain.
The retreat exposed a multi colour landscape that is one of the wonders of the world, however you define them. There are only two known examples, the Peruvian mountain and one in China.
We didn’t commit to this trip until we had completed the Inca Trail. We didn’t know what the outcome of that adventure was going to be, especially Wooksie and her ability to cope with the altitude. As you will have read from other blogs, our trip to Machu Picchu took a different route to avoid a fire in Dead Woman’s Pass, so we avoided the high altitude element of that trek.
As a result, this adventure took on more significance because we needed to prove to ourselves that we could cope with a big high altitude trek (though I had done the climb on one of the Lake Titicaca Islands), which would make up for missing Dead Woman’s Pass.
As always, we were picked up before daybreak by the bus for our long haul to the mountain. We stopped off at the next hotel for more adventurers to board, most were dressed as you would expect for a long climb up a mountain, with one exception, a lady who came dressed in trainers, a fluffy jacket and muti coloured leggings and looked like she had just arrived from a disco, it was Minni.
We cleared the traffic of Cusco headed in a new direction, with different villages and landscapes and after an eternity we stopped for breakfast. The normal people seemed to group themselves together and we ended up sat beside Minni and her friend and got the chance to know each other. It’s strange how we always end up befriending the less orthodox people in a group.
After an unpleasant altercation with a male Alpaca we got back in the bus and started following the offroad trail, to climb up to the drop off point. Cusco is at about 2500m altitude, high but manageable, by the time the minibus had completed the climb up the mountain tracks we were at 4100m.
When we got off the bus the altitude hit us immediately, it felt like a huge pressure on my chest and it took time to get oxygen into the lungs, but it was a real sudden shock, but the body adjusts.
Basically, we were being dropped off at roughly the same altitude as Dead Woman’s Pass, I looked at Wooksie and could see the lack of oxygen was having an immediate effect. We were all issued with walking poles to help with the climb.
I was amazed to see that most of our fellow adventurers chose to take the easy way up on the back of mountain ponies, the ponies carried customers up to the final station, which meant they only had to do the last climb, cheating or what!
We set off to walk the 5km walk to the summit, roughly 1000m higher in altitude. Progress was painfully slow from the get-go. I could see Wooksie was really struggling and suggested that maybe she should get on one of the ponies. To be fair she has had bad experiences with ponies in the past, and she wasn’t going to make an exception.
She then came out with the bravest of words, “I’m going to climb this f@cking mountain if it kills me”. In the light of what had happened in Puno with altitude sickness, it did occur to me that there was a possibility of that happening. On that cheerful note, we headed off.
The tour guide was carrying oxygen for emergencies and it turned out only 3 of passengers on the bus were walking up, Wooksie, me and of course, Minni in her totally inappropriate outfit. An unexpected consequence of trekking at this altitude is the impact on our bowels, there were 3 rest stations on the climb and the toilets were very busy places.
I was carrying a stock of caffeine energy gels and bars. We hadn’t needed them on the other treks but they came in very handy on this one. Each stage of the trek got tougher, I looked into the distance and saw the peak and couldn’t see anyway that Wooksie was going to make it, however, my girl is from Northern England and made of tough stuff, and she climbed that mountain one step at a time.
Eventually we reached a point where we could see the multi coloured, stripped slopes and I was relieved that Wooksie had made it that far, even if she had to go down, she had seen it, but she wasn’t giving up. At the final rest station, we downed the remaining energy bars and gels and made the push for the summit, Wooksie travelling one step at a time, but now I was full of caffeine and bouncing up the mountain like a gazelle then coming back to chat with Wooksie.
Then a moment of drama, the rocks on the mountain are very loose, and the mountain is very steep. The reason Dead Woman’s Pass was abandoned was because of the loose rocks and we had a demonstration of the dangers.
One of the climbers ahead of us dislodged a small rock, that started to roll very slowly initially, it rapidly picked up speed and headed towards the next batch of trekkers, nobody was looking up for danger and the rock hit a group of walkers like a bowling ball, none of them saw it coming and fortunately it was just a glancing blow before it continued it’s journey down through a gully and to safety. It was a great illustration of the dangers and why the Incas spent all their time terracing the mountains to keep them stable.
Soon after this we reached the ridge and had a full view of the coloured slopes and the valleys, as we sat and looked down the valley we saw a mighty condor fly out from a perch below and glide down the valley, if there was ever a message from the gods that was it. I asked Wooksie if she wanted to go to the summit and you can guess the answer.
We climbed up the last couple of hundred metres to the summit at 5100m and the Instagram shot place where there was a long queue. Then another wonderful thing happened, we spotted Bettina, last seen at 3am in a Huacachina night club two weeks before hanging out with Wooksie.
Big embraces, hugs and photos followed, we had made to the summit and banished the little doubts about whether we would have made it over Dead Woman’s Pass on the Inca Trail, this was much higher and much tougher.
Within minutes of saying arrivederci to Bettina we bumped into Minni, and we wandered back down the mountain triumphantly together. Back at the bus, we discovered that we were the only people on the bus to reach the summit. One of the problems with the pony trek approach is that the lungs don’t adjust and suddenly you are on path to the peak at 4700m with no aclimatisation, so they had all given up.
The trip back to Cusco went really quickly, learned a lot about Minni, who was an architect from Toronto and pursuing a part time career as a fashion influencer (hence the strange get up).
After a stop of for a drink, another confrontation with the angry Alpaca, and once the elation had passed we dozed all the way back to Cusco.
On arrival in Cusco, we headed for the Irish Pub only to find another pal from Huacachina, Cockney John.
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