Rainbow Mountain is in the Andes mountains of Peru. It is a mountain of seven colours only recently discovered in the mid-2010 once the glacier ice melted off the cap.

Our adventure starts at 4:30 am when nine of us are picked up by our guides for the plus 2 hour drive to the mountain but first stopping in Cusipata and having a good breakfast to give us some energy. Once we leave Cusipata, the road is all gravel and twisting and turning slowly making our way to the gate where we will start our 3.5km trek.

Our starting altitude is 4630 metres.

We are not even 300 metres from our van and the uphill climb already takes quite an effort so we stop to catch our breath. The air is cool but our bodies start to heat up with the exercise we are putting them through. It’s important to dress in layers and use a lot of sunscreen and sunglasses as the UV index is so high at this altitude.

We do many stops to catch our breath and our guide Brandon provides us Agua Florida or Florida water—what we used to put on babies after their baths many years ago. The yellow cologne helps when you have difficulty breathing and by rubbing your hands with it, clapping and then cupping your hands to your nose, you take deep breaths to help withe the breathing or any altitude headaches.

We can see other mountains that still have glaciers, however it seems that this will not last forever.

You can rent a horse from 70-100 Peruvians soles that will take you closer to the mountain but the remaining one-half kilometre, you must hike. We opt to continue on foot. Along the way, we can see llamas watching us, even a baby!

The greenery we see is due to the thick grass and moss that grows on the lower part of the mountain. When you look closely at the soil and rocks, you can see the different colours already.

As we start our final push to the top, you start to see the colours of the mountain.

It requires a few steps at a time and then rest and then repeat in order to reach the first plateau where many other tourists have congregated.

But, we want want to reach the very top plateau, so this hike is fairly steep but we make it for incredible photos and bragging rights that we are now at 5036 metres or 16,522 feet (my watch says 5030 metres but we’ll take the extra 6 metres!). That is almost the height of Everest base camp!

Our guide asks us if we want to do an extra hike to the nearby Red Valley. A few of our group are game for the 40 minute hike. It is not as arduous, however there are still some up and down hiking that we must do. The entrance fee through the gate is 30 soles each.

Once you enter, it is like another world of colours!

We do not get much time as our guide is eager to return for our lunch, so he suggests a “short cut”. It turns out that we have to side walk down the steep loose sandy gravel mountain side which is almost like a sand dune or fresh powder snow in consistency. Our shoes require a dumping at the bottom!

We still have another 40 minute walk to the van and at the end we are all tired and ready for our lunch. It is almost 4 pm by the time we arrive back at the hotel and we learn that we must leave early the next morning to catch our bus to Puno, Peru. But that’s another blog!