Rare Adventures

Category: Peru

Conquering Rainbow Mountain: high altitude trekking, rolling rocks, courage and condors

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.

12/02/2026
Inca Trail Day 4, the Monkey Steps, Sungate and Machu Picchu

After the drama of Day 3 dinner with the guides and the tip issue the night before, we were in bed very early, with only the very brave (or foolhardy) venturing out into the night for the makeshift toilet. The heavy rain on the tent overnight didn’t lift our spirits for the long trek in the dark.

Day 4 started early, the pots were clanking for breakfast at 2.30am and we were all woken up at 3am for breakfast, which I must admit was pretty hard going but we needed to stock up for a very long day ahead.

The porters were all over the gear like a rash, packing tents and equipment for their early departure. It later transpired that the porters had to lump everything, including waste of all kinds, back down the mountain to the catch the 6.30am train home. A more motivated bunch I have rarely seen.

By 4am we were packed up and ready for the trek from Winay Wayna gate to the Inti Punka or the Inca Sungate, or at least to the gate to the national park to start the trek. We loaded up and started down the trail in the dark and the wet, and to my surprise, within 3 minutes we had arrived at the gatehouse. The Winay Wayna camp was right on the boundary to the national park, so we now joined a queue to enter the park, which opened at 530am, talk about anticlimax.

Luckily, we were one of the first groups to mobilise and were inside the waiting shelter. As the rest of the campsite decamped the queue grew over the next hours to several dozen people, most of whom were stood out in the rain. We were then horrified to discover the gate doesn’t open until 6am, so all this early start was for the convenience of the porters, who had just had a huge tip!

One of the American lads had picked up a particularly bad stomach bug overnight. We had heard his mate complaining about the noise he was making throwing up, and now in the queue he was laid out on the floor but fortunately improved as time went on.

It was at this point that we realised how big the risk of a stomach bug is on a trek, because if we had all picked up this bug we wouldn’t have been going anywhere.

At 6am, the gate to the park opened and after sorting out the tickets we were on our way. The young people seemed to be in a race and hurtled off, but with Wooksie still adjusting to altitude we trundled along at the rear with Todd, who’s knee was reminding him of all the years of basketball abuse it had enduring.

After 3 days of trekking, the 4^th day was tough. It was 2 hours of climbing and staying mentally focused on the prize ahead. Wooksie was starting to struggle with the stomach bug by now, one could only imagine how tough it would be if the bug had developed 2 nights earlier on the trek.

Dawn bought daylight and more stunning views through the gorges and valleys through which the river flowed. Eventually we arrived at the legendary and dreaded monkey steps, the toughest climb of the trek and the last tough push, the each step was 2 or 3 foot high, and each required a big effort to get up, there were over 100 of the monster steps built by the ancient civilisation, yet another example of their incredible engineering skills.

If you are young and fit then you can bounce up them but if you were old and suffering with body pains, they are hell. It is a task that requires arms, legs, knees and the occasional helping hand from friends, I scrambled up them OK, Wooksie followed but Todd dropped behind and made it in his own good time.

Eventually, we came over the ridge to look down on Machu Picchu from the Sungate. There was a feeling of elation, I had expected some mythical sunrise but it was past 8am by the time we got there, so we hadn’t made it for dawn, but we had made it and the view was magnificent.

The next hour was spent getting the Instagram shots done, shaking hands with others and generally enjoying the incredible view from hundreds of feet above Machu Picchu. We then started the much more enjoyable trek down into town, stopping to look at the wild Alpacas but not getting too close, they are cuddly but evil.

The walk up to the Sungate from Machu Picchu is 3 hours alone, so we were glad to be walking down. As we approached the town the views got better as was the feeling of relief at seeing the end of the adventure.

On arrival we saw crowds of people queuing for access from for day tickets and many climbing the up the mountain to get a better view of the town. To be honest the day was a bit of a blur, we did a 2 or 3 hours tour of the buildings and infrastructure, but after 4 days of trekking and being up for 8 hours, our energy was lagging.

The history and splendour of Machu Pichu is like nothing else on earth and you cannot fail to be amazed when you are there. But there is only so many buildings, channels, drains, and terraces that you can take in one lifetime, and by lunch I had reached my fill. The guide who took us around was full of energy, and we tried to be enthusiastic but I’m sure our eyes gave it away.

I was also very glad we had not taken the additional package to climb little Machu Picchu, peak that is part of the park, the climb up another peak would have been too much, it looked incredible but by now I just wanted to sit down and have a decent meal.

We were shipped back to Aguas Caliente. Most of our fellow trekkers gathered in the same restaurant and we had a last meal together, chatted about our experiences, how much we needed a comfy bed and it was time to find our train, the one of those that had passed so close by us on the second day and enjoy the trip back to Ollyemptambo and the bus back to Cusco.

One last thing do not underestimate how much fun the train trip back is. Not only does it have a fantastic glass roof, comfortable seats and people coming around selling coffee and refreshments, you even get a Spanish style guitar band with a trumpet, so there is no chance of sleep until you get on the bus.

09/02/2026
Inca Trail day 3: Cloud forests, precarious toilets and a tip ambush

Eventually, we wandered into our second campsite. To find the porters had all been busy again, the tents had been built, the canteen tent was laid out ready for dinner and we had bowls of water sitting outside our tents for washing.

Another smashing evening chatting with our companions, good food and it was time to re-engage with my wandering mattress in the tent for another night chasing it around the tent floor. After such a long period without camping the hard ground started to take its toll so the early morning stretch was getting tougher.

Same routine with breakfast and then we set off on a long day of climbing. The downside of coming through the valley was that we were way below the altitude needed for the Sun Gate at Machu Picchu. If we had gone over Dead Woman’s Pass we would have been coming down so day 3 would have been the easy part of the journey.

The Incas were very busy step builders and we were regularly negotiating steep climbs and drops using the stairs they had built 500 years ago. The path meandered along the hillsides, dropping occasionally but it was never any relief, because whenever we went down, we knew we would be coming back up.

Best scenery of the trek

The scenery on day 3 was stunning, mostly we climbed through the cloud forest, which is pretty much what it says on the tin, the altitude of the forest means that there are shrouds of clouds in amongst the trees, I guess we would normally call the fog!

The comradery of our fellow adventurers was great but the strain of the climbing was making an impact on Todd’s knees and he really started to slow up, as did Wooksie who was struggling again as we started to hit altitude, plus the endless steps up through the terraces. The young people didn’t have any of these issues and I made it my business to try to keep up with them, but it wasn’t particularly successful.

There were some spectacular structures along the route which left us in awe of the Inca ability to turn uninhabitable hillsides into fertile terraces for growing crops of raising animals, probably Alpacas and Lamas.

Into the afternoon we finally crossed the path coming down from Dead Woman’s Pass which marked the end of the serious climbing for that day. Soon afterwards we were at probably the most impressive of the remote Inca temples and settlements, stunning views, great photo opportunities and an end of the climbing.

We headed up for the last push to the next campsite only to find that we had actually arrived and it was only 10 minutes away. The porters were busy assembling tents on the terraces and putting the food together for the evening.

We had a big chunk of the afternoon to ourselves for recovery, which the young people used to climb up some of the trail to Dead Woman’s Pass to prove they had done it, meanwhile, Wooksies decided she would just go and have a lay down, whilst Todd and I went and found ourselves a nice bench and talked about to right the wrongs of the world, and the looking threat of a Trump presidency.

Precarious Loos

This was our last camp, and due to it’s location at the end of the trail it was very busy. The conditions were crammed and toilet facilities were at a premium. Each night the porters erected a toilet tent, and tonight was no exception, however, due to the precipitous location of the camp site, the toilet tent was literally hanging off the side of the cliff.

Going to the loo involved a lot of dexterity, but we had to hang on to the branch of a tree to stop us tumbling down the hillside into the bushes. There weren’t many late night visits to the loo that was for sure, and it wasn’t linked to heavy rain that started to fall during dinner.

The tipping tradition

The tradition of treks normally involves a tip for the porters which is collected as a form of thank for their services. In this case it was more a form of extortion, after dinner, the trek leader gave us a grand stand speech on how poor everyone was, and how we were rich.

The poor old cooks and porters were made to queue up in the rain, and then they were marched in front of us bowing while we applauded their efforts. It was clear that it was humiliating for them and embarrassing for us, in fact, I eventually suggested that they should be allowed to get in out of the rain as they had worked hard enough and didn’t need to be going through this ritual.

He then told us that we should have separate tips for the cook team and the porter team, and that each trekker should contribute $50 to each of the team, which was $100 each in total. Todd had his family of 7 with in, so in effect he was looking at a tip of $700 !

It is fair to say that this rather the dampened the atmosphere as nobody was carrying that sort of cash. Between us we clubbed together and created a decent contribution from the group.

Interestingly, when we did our feedback to Alpaca Tours on the bus home, everyone complained (without any co-ordination) and to be fair we were met in Cusco by representative who worked hard to resolve the problem, but be warned.

04/02/2026
Inca Trail Day 2: Close encounters with trains and endless ancient step

Day 2 of the Inca Trail trek officially started at the crack of dawn when the porters came to our tents with warm water to have a wash. Unfortunately, our day had started way earlier than that.

This was our first night under canvass for many years, having had the luxury of an old VW camper for 20 years, the need to sleep on the floor was long passed. Consequently we paid the extra for the sleeping mattress, but during the night my body and the sleeping mattress parted company, or at least, I spent most of the night with limbs and torso only having the briefest of contact with the mattress, so the dawn chorus and the warm water was a welcome relief.

Breakfast was all ready for us, with hot drinks, bread, toast and various local porridge type concoctions for us to stock up on. Day 2 was scheduled to be the big day, with a 1000m climb over Dead Woman’s pass, but we were heading off on our alternative route around the mountain.

We set off along the valley, trekking through farmland and following the Urubamba River, which ultimately could take us to Machu Picchu Pueblo further along the Sacred Valley. The walking was nice and easy and Wooksie was recovering steadily at the lower altitude, and I was grateful we weren’t climbing a mountain, and I wasn’t the only one, Todd was really suffering with his knees.

Time passed quickly as the adventurers got to know each other. I was inquisitive about the Mormon way of life and how their beliefs varied from mainstream Christianity, and the conversations meandered through numerous topics.

We also had a lad from Sweden, I didn’t know anything about their social issues with drug related gang crime and I was even more intrigued to discover that there was still national service in Sweden, as you can tell, I enjoyed listening, talking and sharing views on anything that came up.

Eventually we crossed a footbridge and found ourselves beside the train track again, we then realised that the alternative route was actually walking along the train track. It is probably fair to say that this approach would not have survived a UK Health and Safety risk assessment, but it was a lot of fun, but the walking was hard over the stones that the track was bedded on.

There were plenty of tunnels and cuttings that involved sending a scout ahead to check it was safe, and then we would all run through the tunnel before any other trains came. Over time we all got used to our close encounters with the trains. They always blew their whistles as they must have known there were trekkers on their track, and it normally involved lots of waving to passengers.

By early afternoon, we reached another river crossing and headed back across the bridge to pick up the trail. One of the discussions was around why would the Inca kings want to climb over a 4500m pass when they could walk along the river. It didn’t make any sense, so we concluded that the kings probably used this route along the river and named our trail the “Royal Route”, rather than the “Classic Route”.

The Inca Trail isn’t really the route used by the Incas, more a route that takes you through some of the Inca sites on the way to Machu Picchu.

Once across the river we picked up the normal trail again and started the climb. After an easy day along the valley, it was good to be in the forest again, climbing steadily past waterfalls and magnificent views, and we started to pick up the Inca constructions in the form of terraced hillsides.

We then realised how incredible the constructions were. Basically, these hillsides were very steep and covered in small loose rocks, and useless, The terracing of the hillsides enabled them to use the steps for farming and turn the whole area into a form of industrial farming complex. Among the constructions there were houses and temples that reflected their way of life.

Late afternoon, we wandered into our second campsite. To find the porters had all been busy again, the tents had been built, the canteen tent was laid out ready for dinner and we had bowls of water sitting outside our tents for washing.

Another smashing evening chatting with our companions, good food and pretty quickly the day light was gone and it was time to re-engage with my wandering mattress in the tent, and another night chasing it around the tent floor.

31/01/2026
Inca Trail Day 1 – High drama at the Inca Trail head.

After the trauma of the altitude issues with Wooksie, we didn’t take the decision to push on with the Inca Trail trek lightly, but we knew this was probably our only chance to do it, but the chances of failure were quite high for Wooksie. We checked into the pre trek meeting in Cusco the night before, looking forward to meeting our fellow adventurers.

We gathered in the meeting room to find we were travelling with 2 Canadians, 2 Swiss, a Dane and a group of 7 from one US family. During the introductions we discovered the Americans were from Utah and Mormons, brilliant, we were spending 3 days trekking with a bunch of bible punchers – could this get any worse.

We confirmed we were all in good health and ready to go, so next morning we were picked up at our hotel at 4am, and headed to Ollantaytambo trail head, the place where all those group photos of enthusiastic people are taken. However, we were one Canadian short, one of them had started to suffer from altitude sickness the night before and decided not to go.

When we got there it quickly became apparent there was a problem. The guide went to the Wardens office to collect our passes and didn’t come back. We then noticed huddles of guides around the office in deep conversation.

Our fellow adventurers formed huddles and started to speculate on what was wrong, had someone died on the trail, was there a guide strike, had Machu Pichu collapsed, were the porters on strike?

Eventually our guide returned, gathered us together and did an athletic leap up on to a table. The trail was closed, apparently this had never happened before, but there had been a fire at high altitude on Dead Woman’s Pass and it was impassable.

I put my head in my hands in total disbelief, for 22 years we had been looking forward to doing this trek, and the day we get here it is closed for the first time ever, I just couldn’t believe my luck.

Later when discussing with our fellow trekkers, they all joked about what a desolate image I cut, but it really did feel like my cursed ability to wreak chaos and disasters had caught up with me again. To be honest, it was a bigger disaster for the Americans, who had booked a year in advance, but they presumably accepted it as an act of God!

It then transpired that the guides and wardens were plotting an alternative option. There was an old trail which went around the mountain rather than over the top through Dead Woman’s Pass.

Obviously, the trekking company didn’t want to lose the revenue and we all wanted to go, so a plan was hatched to take this alternative route that still delivered us to the Sun Gate to see day break over Machu Picchu on the 3^rd morning. There was also a chance that the Pass may open later that day once the fire was under control.

We set off along the route, which initially takes you alongside the train line that runs to Machu Picchu, we then crossed the river and followed the a relatively gentle trail along the side of the valley. I was amazed at the size of our operation, for every trekker there were at least 2 porters carrying the camping equipment, food and cooking utensils.

In Nepal the treks used established wooden camps, so I was a bit surprised to see that the entire trek carried it’s own supplies and equipment over the mountains, these little Peruvians were strong!

After a mile or so we started our first climb up into the hills and it became immediately apparent that we had another problem, Wooksie had been making reasonable progress but as soon as we hit a climb she slowed right down to a crawl, she is a woman of steel and never moans, but I could see in her face she was hurting.

After a couple of painfully slow ascents, it became obvious that she was in no fit state to climb the Dead Woman’s Pass and that this fire, and the alternative route may have been the luckiest break ever.

We started to see the failed trekkers making their way back down, individuals that looked like they had been broken by the experience, some walking, some on horseback and in once case, hardly conscious.

As the day went on, I became more and more grateful that the Pass was closed, in fact my big concern was that they may declare the Pass open. I was watching the guides intently as there was a lot of radio communications going on. One trek was attempting the Pass to see if it was safe.

We stopped for lunch in a large shed, the timing was perfect as we missed out on walking through torrential rains. Whilst having lunch the pioneer group that had tried the pass came in, it was impassable.

The fire had burned up the vegetation which binds the rocks together on the mountain side, without the vegetation the rocks were lose and the forces of gravity were causing them to dislodge and cascading down the hillside, so the risk was not the fire but the threat of being hit by a falling rock.

With this information I was even more grateful we were taking the old route, and after lunch we visited one of the Inca terraced hillsides to amaze ourselves at their engineering and landscape shaping skills, whilst Wooksie rested under a tree. She was getting stronger all the time but not strong enough to climb a mountain and now we knew that she would be able to make it on this lower route.

Then we headed off for more walking and we made it to our first camp late in the afternoon, 10km covered today, but we knew it would be tougher the next day. One of the best thing about treks is the company of our fellow travellers, our Mormon companions turned out be really great people.

It was actually me that invoked the conversations about the Mormon lifestyle and values, unlike the common view of Americans that they are insular, uneducated and don’t travel, these guys travelled a lot. The grown up children had all been missionaries in Central America or Africa, were really well educated, and seemed to be able to talk about anything, so were great companions.

At the end of the trek I was left reflecting how our drift away from religion meant we had lost many good values.

That night, the porters set the tents up, set up the canteen and cooked an amazing meal then challenged the walkers to a football match, which we declined !

We had a great time chatting with the others over dinner. Some of the younger trekkers were very disappointed about missing out on the climb, but Todd, the father of the Mormon family was struggling with a bad knee and Wooksie were relieved, I’m not sure either of them would have made it.

28/01/2026