Having had a day to recover from Salkantay trek in Cusco which consisted of wandering around San Pedro market again eating market food of omelette, vegetables, rice and lots of chillies as well as trying all of the strange fruits, I actually surprised myself when I decided I wanted to do anther hike. Aimee and Grace, two lovely Californian girls we met on our hike and in our hostel wanted to do Rainbow mountain day hike. I had also wanted to do this when I read about it before coming to Peru and saw the vivid strips of colour on the mountain top. We bargained with the travel agent we booked our Salkantay hike with and got the day trip for 75 soles ($22) including breakfast and lunch...Bueno. We had an early night but when my alarm went off at 2.40am I really did wonder what I was doing! We got picked up from our hostel just after 3am and had a three hour bus journey out to Ausangate mountain (I think everyone slept most of the way). We set off hiking at about 8am after a simple (crap) breakfast of bread and jam as well as a surprisingly nice chocolate semolina concoction. We set off quite quickly knowing well how cold it would be at the top. We also were surprised at how many tourists were being dropped off at the same time. I was glad to see the girls also get 'pedestrian rage' so we bolted ahead of the crowds.
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| Baby alpaca with mummy |
The scenery was beautiful and the indigenous people in traditional dress with OPEN TOE sandals ran up and down constantly with their horses should any tourist feel the effects of the altitude. There were also Alpacas lining the trails with their little babies playing in the fields (I want/need a pet baby alpaca). After two and a half hours we made it to the top of rainbow mountain. The highest altitude I had ever been at at 5300m. Thankfully I wasn't overcome with altitude sickness and just had a bit of a headache. The thing that got to me the most was the cold. Even with four layers on, hats and gloves it was still excruciatingly cold...almost too cold to take a selfie!! The sleet and snow didn't help either. We took the obligatory tourist pictures and scrambled back down in under two hours taking breaks to re and de poncho with the intermittent rain and snow.
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| The top of rainbow mountain |
Once we got back on the bus we had an hour to wait for everyone else (we didn't mind though as long as it was warm). After everyone made it back to the bus we had a short drive to lunch where we were greeted with quinoa vegetable soup (can't believe I'd never had quinoa soup before) followed by chicken in sauce, rice and salad. We then had our three hour bus back to Cusco. This was of course another winding road complete with a child getting sick in a bag in the seat in front....think the altitude affected some more than others.
Later that evening Grace, Aimee and I cooked a simple and extremely cheap dinner of omelettes, avocado and salad (everything for $1)! And kirsty and Eimear joined us. Aimee and grace left us for Ecuador the next morning. Kirsty, Eimear and I decided to also leave Cusco the next evening..the three of us strangely looking forward to an overnight bus again!
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| Coffee in JC's cafe |
Next stop: Arequipa, Peru
Stayed: intro hostel, Cusco,
Food/drink: El tabuco, a really cute little pizza place around the corner from Intro hostel, Food in San Pedro market, $2.50 for vegetable omelette, salad and rice. Coffee in JC's cafe
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