Trek to Rainbow Mountain - Day 1

  Nevado Auzangate, Cusco, Peru Tuesday, April 5, 2016

It was only by chance that we had heard of Rainbow Mountain. Just before we arrive in a new country, we google what there is to do there and plan out route through the country that incorporates as much as we can. Jody has always done her search through google images and then says "oh that looks nice - i want to go there'! A slightly different approach to Bryan who reads the forums and lonely planet recommendations etc. On one such search, Jody came up with Rainbow Mountain and so set in motion the plot to find it. If she had done this search before we left England and planned a route then, we never would have known about it as this trek has only opened up in the last 3 months. So we were lucky she did it when we were in Huanchaco.It was also hard to find any information about how to get there too - all we knew was that it was in a National Park somewhere near Cusco. Luckily we also had friends who were scouting ahead of us and they recommended we visit Vertigo Travel for more information. So when we arrived in Cusco we went straight along to see them and that is when we met the lovely William. William was considered experienced on this trek. That meant of all the tour operators in Cusco, he has been doing this the longest - which meant he had been going for one month only. Yes this trek is that new but for sure this is going to become a very popular route soon. This is a class 3 trek. To give you some idea of what that means, class 4 is high risk where you will need to be roped for safety and class 5 is mountaineering/rock climbing. So class 3 is about the hardest you will get for your average trekker. What makes this a class 3 trek?   Walking up to an altitude of 5,000m is the main one, and no clearly defined paths and lack of local knowledge just adds to it. But we had William and we were confident he would find the way for us and ensure we had a great time.The day came and we were picked up in a car at 6:30am. No time for a proper breakfast as the woman had turned up late and so we barely had time for a cup of tea. There were two other men in the car; the driver and a man who was introduced as Ilario but we didn't know what he was there for. We drove for approximately 1 1/2 hours and turned off the main road into a small village. This turned out to be Pitumarca and it was very quaint. William led us towards a market where the driver & Ilario promptly sat down for a large bowl of soup. We wondered around the town for a bit then returned to use the toilet. Wondering what on earth they would be like we actually had to buy a ticket from the lady outside first! 5p to use the loo but the price included a couple of squares of paper - bargain eh? William knew that Jody was vegetarian and that the local food wasn't suitable, so sent Ilario to buy bread and cheese and juice and we sat in the sunshine in the square and ate our impromptu breakfast.Now if only we hadn't done that! We drove on and the roads were much smaller and more rustic here. The driver was going slowly and carefully up a beautiful track with a river to our right, when we were confronted with the rear end of a reversing lorry. A man came along and asked the driver to go back a bit. Thinking the lorry wanted to turn around, our driver obliged. You can only begin to imagine our shock, horror, disbelief and anger (in that order) when the lorry promptly dumped 40 ton of dirt and gravel in front of our car. What the hell??? We could not go around it, over it or through it. We were trapped. Then more lorries appeared all the way up the road and dumped hundreds more tons of crushed rock all up the road clearly for resurfacing.We were so so angry! If they had only waited a minute for us to pass the first lorry we would have been on our way. Instead we were held up almost 2 hours whilst they got a tractor to rake it all over. We were absolutely livid. This was all eating into our trekking time and would effect where we camped and everything else. If only we hadn't stopped to eat that cheese roll for breakfast. Well eventually we were able to drive on but it had really put a damper on the whole trip and we all drove on in silence. The scenery wowed us over though and soon enough we were smiling again. We came to almost the end of the road and in a beautiful valley, with alpacas grazing by the small river that ran along the bottom, Ilario unpacked the car and started to set himself up.We watched William walk to some houses on the opposite side of the river and he and another man set about catching some horses. We watched as they did so and then it started to get really cold. Then it started to hail and we jumped back in the car to wait it out. Next ting we knew, Ilario presented us with big steaming bowls of asparagus soup he had just knocked up on the side of the mountain. Wow! Just what we needed. Then, ding ding round two - a plate of tequeños and fresh guacamole! So this is why Ilario is with us - he is a chef. Today is looking up for sure.  The sun came out and the car dropped us off a bit further up the road where we got out and walked along the valley and up the hill to where some more dwellings were.Walking here is very tiring. We are at about 4,000 metres and every step you take, requires more energy than it does at lower altitudes. We were not short of breath, just very conscious that every breath needed a bigger draw to get the same amount of oxygen into us. And we weren't even at the highest point yet! Everywhere you look here, are alpacas and llamas and they are so cute. We have really come to love them. And the scenery is stunning! Stunning! Stunning! Stunning! It was difficult to walk because all you wanted to do was look around you and take it all in but at the same time, there are not well trodden paths here and you had to watch where you were walking if you wanted to avoid an injury. William and the crew caught up with us and were joined by two horsemen from the first group of houses. We didn't catch their names but they smiled a lot. Our horses were sweet. We had hired three; one to carry equipment and two to carry us when the walking got too tough. As we climbed higher, the walking would get tougher but the horses would cope better than us.We were very glad we had them as it meant we could enjoy the scenery at our leisure, whilst the horses did the walking. And their saddles were so comfortable. Perfect! The only thorn in our side was that we were not allowed to ride them properly. Someone had to be holding the reigns at all times even though we protested a bit. But fair's fair - it's their horses and if we want to ride them we have to play by their rules. So we trekked on. Passed beautiful streams, waterfalls and herds of alpaca. And not having to hold any reigns meant we could keep our hands free for our cameras. Every cloud eh? And one of the horsemen had their dog tagging along; Pepe. He was very sweet. A border collie who had ran alongside us all afternoon. We eventually came to a level area of ground where William and the crew unloaded the horses and rolled out the tents. A small average tent for us two and a large square tent for the crew. (There were now 5 of them including the two horsemen).Ilario set up his kitchen and began chopping vegetables and we helped put up the tent for us and get all of our kit inside it. We had only brought small backpacks with us and left all our unnecessary stuff back in Cusco. But we needed to get into some warmer clothes. As the sun disappeared it got very very cold on that mountain. As we had climbed higher, Jody had developed a headache but couldn't be sure if it was from being tired, high up, or just from the result of being so upset with the road men when they held us up. So she stayed in the tent for a bit away from everyone else, out of the cold wind and took some painkillers. She couldn't snooze so eventually got out and joined everyone else in the big tent. We were provided with another delicious bowl of hot vegetable soup and a main meal. Bryan had fried chicken with rice and vegetables and a choice of teas, coffee or hot chocolate. Unfortunately Jody was so tired by now that she could barely manage the soup and a cup of hot chocolate. Ilario was obviously concerned his food wasn't very nice and Jody felt bad about that. Pepe didn't as he was the main beneficiary!It wasn't much longer after that we all turned in, the horses were tethered together to stop them wandering off and Pepe settled down outside too. A large group of horses had followed us too. They weren't tethered at all so were free to roam. We suppose they had just come along to keep their friends company as those were the horses we had hired. Long after we had crawled into our sleeping bags we could hear the men in the other tent still laughing. We supposed this felt a bit like being on a scout jamboree for them as none of them had been doing this for very long. Today had been a bit of a mixture for us but tomorrow was the day we would get to see the mountain we had come all this way for and we couldn't wait!