Along with the obvious (Machu Picchu), Rainbow Mountain was one of the main reasons we wanted to visit Peru. For some reason the idea of dope views and zero oxygen just sounds great to me (doesn't it to everyone?). We chose to book through our PeruHop recommended guide, Rainbow Mountain Tours because there's way too many options and at this point it just didn't matter. It's possible to do the hike on your own (which usually I would have done, I'm pretty anti tour/anti guide, I prefer to flail) but Rainbow Mountain is 3 hours from Cusco and you'd have to book a ride for the entire day or somehow arrange for a taxi to drop you off and another to pick you up when you're done, and to be honest thats just way too much fucking around for me.
Our tour had pros and cons:
Pros: we got breakfast, were one of the first groups up the mountain, and they picked us up at our bnb which was bomb because lets face it, 2 white girls should not be ripping around Cusco in the middle of the night.
Cons: 2am wake up time, small van = car sickness again.
Okay neither of those cons are fair because obviously 2am wake up contributed to being first up the mountain and maybe motion sickness is just my body's way of telling me I should walk more places right? Yeah not gonna happen, I'll throw up every day thanks.
We napped in our van seats for the first 2 hours until we got to the breakfast place. They gave us coca tea (for altitude sickness, which we had avoided thus far, so we had our fingers crossed for our highest day yet) some bread and a flat egg omelette thingy. There was also some weird smoothie thing that seemed good in theory but it was warm and tasted like grass so had to pass on that, so overall, 5/10 for breakfast but it was free with the tour so not complaining.
The last hour of the drive was straight uphill, on a tiny little washed out mountain road. I watched out the window as we weaved around farmers with llamas and horses in tow, how neither us nor the animals fell off the road I'll never know but it was clear as to why it was not advised to rent a car and drive yourself to the mountain. On the last bit of the drive the guide warned us about what kind of weather we might encounter on the trek, he said the top can be anywhere from +5 to -5 degrees this time of year so we were advised to wear toques, scarves and gloves at all times. The Australians and one Brazilian guy in our van seemed legitimately worried that they may die on the mountain and be preserved forever in the snow, like this was some sort of Everest shit.
Me and Jas were more than prepared with our alpaca sweaters, rain jackets (matching, obvs) and toques and truth be told we were more worried about the altitude than anything else. Thus far we had been fine, maybe because we took a week to get from Lima to Cusco which gave us time to acclimate or maybe we're just awesome. Either way, the summit of Rainbow Mountain was going to be the highest altitude either of us had ever been at 17,060 ft (for reference, Everest base camp is 17,600 ft and hometown Quesnel BC is a piddly 1,560 ft), so we were just a little worried about oxygen, or lack of.
In the parking lot they basically gave us one last chance to back out. If we did indeed choose to go forth into certain death, they let us know there were options to take a horse to help you the rest of they way up or have the use of an oxygen tank (bottled lung nectar) if you needed it. They were really hyping this up to be the hardest thing ever. We got going straight off the bus and were leading our pack with a nice Canadian couple (is there any other kind?), I was surprised that about half our group opted to either not go or to take a horse up, not sure on actual numbers because we took off the second we were given the go ahead. Didn't get up at 2am to be the last ones there ya know?
The hike was flatter than I expected it to be, until it really REALLY wasn't. The trail is deceivingly easy for the first 90% of it, we kind of just meandered along, watching the sun rise over the surrounding mountains as we went, shedding layers as the hike went on and the day got warmer. Towards the end, you could see in the distance what we were gonna have to go through to get to the final summit. The thin trail flattened and widened out to the spot the horses stopped and their riders were dropped to fend for themselves up the "stairs" to the top of the mountain. I'm gonna call them stairs but it was more of a slippery slope with the suggestion of steps and not even a little bit of a suggestion of enough oxygen.
As the altitude rose and the oxygen thinned, it was having different effects on all of us, personally it made me super weird and giddy, kind of like when you're so sleep deprived that you get hyper (does this happen to other people?).
I felt simultaneously like I could run up the rest of the mountain without a break, but also like if I stopped I may throw up and die. I chose the former, and basically jog-hiked up the rest of mountain, much to the shock of the poor, cold, Brazilian man who had taken a horse most of the way and was now struggling up the last leg to the summit, the words 'crazy Canadians' were definitely uttered. Stopped for a break and the dizziness took over, almost causing me to fall down the mountain onto the llama grazing ground below. I handled it how I do most things and just pretended it wasn't happening, continued on and hoped it would go away, this time, success!
We officially summited around 8am, the views were fricken breath taking (LITERALLY NO OXYGEN) and we celebrated with a much needed cliff bar and a bottle of water. The top has 2 levels, the bottom of which has a small brick wall to have a seat on and take a break, there was a nice Peruvian woman selling coca candy (made from the leaves of the plant that cocaine comes from) and water bottles to combat the altitude death here.
This was also where Jas took my most favourite photo of me in the entire world, me + fluffy alpaca + Peruvian man dressed like a rainbow = better than my wedding photos (sorry George). Peru Instagrams will lead you to believe that there are alpacas freely roaming all streets of all cities, this is a lie, I repeat, do not believe them, this alpaca was the most accessibly-huggably (making that a word) that we had seen, hence the photoshoot, judge us, I don't care!
The uppermost level of Rainbow Mountain is where you get the best views of the actual rainbow colours, which we learned are created by different types and mixtures of natural minerals found in the rock. The mountain itself was only discovered 3 years ago but quickly became one of the most visited places in Peru. We hung out here for probably about an hour, taking photos and catching up with some of our tour mates, some of which had beaten us up on horseback (cheaters), and some of which seemed like they may have flown there because they still had energy to do crazy yoga poses on the peak, for the gram I assume, no judgement, would if I could. But seriously, a one armed handstand at 17 000 feet after getting up at 2am??? Mad props to that guy (mad props? who am I?).
On the way up in the van, our guide let us know that if we were fast enough up to the summit, we had the option of going 20 minutes further to see the red valley, which was apparently arguably better than Rainbow Mountain. So we checked in with our guide, got a vague wave in the direction we were supposed to go and off we went. The climb was another easy one, just down the sketchy "stairs" and back up to the right of the mountain. We bombed on up to the ridge where a small Peruvian man demanded 10 soles from us for "entrance", whatever that means. Whether that was an official payment or not, we made it, because heck we're already here and its not like we had other places to be (except maybe, you know, grabbing some oxygen somewhere).
The Red Valley was, in a word, red. And a valley. To be perfectly honest, the Red Valley was more of a red valley than Rainbow Mountain was a rainbow mountain. Not that Rainbow Mountain wasn't rainbow-y but the Red Valley was just really red, you know?
We took some normal photos here and then some not so normal ones, may have been the lack of oxygen or may have been the fact that this was the last big adventure of our trip but we got just the slightest bit weird here.
The nice Canadian couple from before took some photos of both of us, a rarity when traveling just the two of us, they probably thought we were lesbians (like a lot of the rest of the people we met on this trip had assumed, lez-be-honest here) but whatever, 90s rap pose works for everyone (don't try to fight me on this one). Jasmine also has some photos of them on her phone (because the iPhone X is bomb) that we never actually got to them, so, Canadians who climbed Rainbow Mountain on Nov 19th... hit me up (actually hit up Jasmine).
Our visit to the red valley was short and sweet, as we had a timeline to get back to the bus or be left behind (I don't know if that's actually true but that's what the guide said and I wasn't about to mess around with a Peruvian tour company). Lo and behold, we were bombing down the mountain, because at this point, we were really only gaining oxygen (I missed that sweet, sweet lung nectar) and we ran into this little hometown nomad. Shoutout to Graham Paul for somehow being on Rainbow Mountain at the exact same time as us, also shoutout to him for surviving (I assume) the blizzard/monsoon that ensued the minute we arrived back on our bus.
In summary:
Rainbow Mountain is indeed, rainbow. But The Red Valley is by far more red than Rainbow Mountain is rainbow.
Both are worth the 2am wake up and the fact that there was a crushing lack of lung nectar.
Easily in the top 5 coolest places I've ever been.
Aaaaaand that's all you need to know!
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