Catching a Rainbow - Hiking Vinicuna (Rainbow Mountain)

I'm not going to lie, although this was a spectacular day, I was pretty damn cranky and trying hard to keep it to myself. Back from our multi-day trek from Ollantaytambo to Machu Picchu quite late in the evening, we just had time to say some hurried goodbyes to new good friends and grab much-needed extended showers before hitting the hay. Why the rush? Pick up for our next day's adventure was 2 am, which gave us less than five hours of hotel amenities and sleep before hopping on a bus (in our same smelly hiking clothes ha!) for the four hour drive to the base of Vinicuna. I was too tired and too sore to embrace the spirit of adventure quite so early, but I promise the positivity returns along the way!

First stop on the way about 4 hours into the drive was a local homestead for a ridiculously huge breakfast. We were hosted by a small family - husband, wife and child - in a one room home with a bed, kitchen and table. They made enough food for easily twice as many people as our group of about 10, and it was delicious. Filling up on hearty oatmeal, bread and jam, fruit, a starchy white drink, and coffee (yaaaas!), we were well fuelled for our trek. 

Hitting the road again as day broke, we reached the base of Vinicuna in about another half hour. Now, coming fresh of the Inca Trail and barely stable on my wobbly baby llama legs, I knew I was going to need to be bribed into doing his additional trek. A four legged equine bribe. That's right - horsies! 

You can arrange to ride a horse guided by a caballero along the flat part of the journey in advance or take your chances and bargain on-site. Having arranged our horses beforehand, it was a short (albeit agonizing) jaunt up to the start of the valley where the trail began and our caballeros awaited. Oh man was I ever grateful for the horse! Although the trek is gentle inclines or largely flat until the last scramble up for the view, it was the highest altitude we would reach on the journey and reaching 5,200m (17,060ft). So this cuties' faces were a very welcome sight. 

Climbing in the saddles, we set off across the plains to the peak. I tried chatting a little with my caballero in my best broken Spanish - he lived nearby, was married, and had three kids - but he seemed to prefer talking to his colleague leading Erin's horse. 

Which was fine with me as I was busy ruining Erin's selfies. Heh heh heh...

My general sense of excitement and adventure for the day returned when I realized we were in the heart of freakin' LLAMA COUNTRY!! Llamas and alpacas filling the fields as far as the eye could see!!

And everywhere you looked was sprawling, beautiful mountain meadows.

A short while into the day, we stopped at the checkpoint to have our tickets punched and take in a peek of local farm life.

Throughout the trek, we hopped on and off our horses to enable them to walk up steeper escarpments and cross rocky river beds safely without the weight of a rider. Which made me admittedly feel better about the whole experience as the horses are relatively small compared to the big ranching and trail riding horses I usually ride at home.

You reach a point where you make the final ascent on foot and leave your horse and caballero to rest and refresh. As we approached Vinicuna, the remarkable colours that give the mountain its name came into view.

You reach a small rest area (with convenience store/stall) where the whole rainbow valley opens before you.

One final steep sprint takes you up to an adjacent plateau to take in the full cascading rainbow of minerals.

(Too tired to hike, but never too tired to photobomb.)

One huge advantage to our group setting out so early in the day is that we nearly had the mountains to ourselves. A handful of folks at had camped out the night before took their photos before us, giving our group ample time to capture the vistas to our hearts content.

We even had time to put on our complimentary t-shirts, take a group photo and hear about the "re-discovery" of Vinicuna by the company's founder.

We even had time to completely goof around before the hordes started arriving!

After ample, abundant time on the plateau, we descended to the bottom of the slope both to allow the new arrivals space for their photos and to hear about the composition and formation of Vinicuna. Admittedly, I am bad at listening and was distracted eating my snack and by this adorable moocher. He and his sister got all my cookies and ear scritches.

So I looked up the info afterwards. The colours in Rainbow Mountain are the result of different minerals being exposed to the elements. The red is iron oxide rust, the green is chlorite, the brown is sandstone, and the yellow is iron sulphite. I'm sure my geologist friends would loooooove to correct my sloppy descriptions, but they can just write their own blog on the subject. Because I'm pretty sure it's just sherbet.

Back down the incline, we reunited with our caballeros and horses for he trek back. By this point hundreds of visitors were making their way through the park and horses were in high demand. We kept seeing exhausted travellers standing along the path with someone yelling "caballero libre!" (free horseman) often followed by hard bargaining over the cost of a four-legged lift. Our caballeros hustled us back in order to feed, water and rest the horses in time to pick up some of the remaining lucrative business. 

With a thank you and goodbye to the caballeros and horses, we made our way through pastures of llamas back to the awaiting bus.

Just as I was crossing the last stream, I noticed two big birds of prey settled in the middle of a field. They're Cara Caras.

The four hour bus ride back was pretty interesting. In the dark, I had no notion we were going rough small towns, over rickety bridges, and along blind corners on a mountainside. We stopped for lunch at the same homestead on the way back and had enough food for an army!

Back at our hotel, it was time for a shower and a rest. And when I got up, it was 7 am the next day... oops. I don't think Erin was too pleased with my unintentional 14-hour nap.