Today we are going on a trip in our imaginations to a place that felt like heaven. This place, Rainbow Mountains, exists and can be visited in actual time, readers, you just have to tap into your mind right now to view it from our perspective and memories. Getting to the slice of heaven was a feat in itself. Chris and I signed up for this trip back in America months before we left for Peru. We had a 3am pick up at the local church that did not go according to schedule. We woke up at 2:15 and got ready, walked to the church, and waited. We chatted with a nice fellow and then the busses arrived. They did not call our name so we asked the lady with the clipboard if we were in it and she said no. So we waited for another bus to come. For future reference in this story, this lady was in fact, one of our guides. The nice gentleman we chatted with was also, in our group. So we waited….
We saw a man in bottomless chaps who peed on the outside of the church in a drunken state. We saw a mariachi band leaving a club and singing on the streets of Cusco. What we did not see, was another bus. We both had a feeling to walk back to the hostel after 45 minutes of waiting. When we arrived at the hostel, the front desk person told us the bus went there to pick us up. We thought we messed everything up. The person at the desk called the company and said he bus would come back to get us. An hour later, no bus arrived. We were flying back to the States the next morning and the person at the front desk tried to reschedule our trip with one of their companies but we did not have time. So, they called the company we designed up with again and a taxi was sent for us. I just kept feeling like we would see the place from the pictures and I felt there was nothing to worry about. Chris went to use the bathroom and the driver arrived.
We loaded in a tiny car, small for our 6 foot selves, but we fit laying down a bit. We were driven at a very fast pace for over an hour and the man stopped at where we were supposed to have free breakfast. Nothing was left of course, understandable, and we told him there was no need to stop, but he insisted because we paid for it. We used the bathroom which was outside on a hill and had a hole in the ground. It was nice and clean and had a ceramic piece where your feet go surrounding the hole. The people made us a quick plate, we felt bad, and on we went to drive up the mountain. When we arrived, our group guide was waiting. We entered at the sign and he took off with the oxygen. We signed up to have oxygen in case I needed it since it was 16,000 feet. We got nervous because days before our trip, two people at the hostel were telling stories of how they could not breathe, tried riding the horses, and had to go back to Cusco without seeing Rainbow Mountains due to no oxygen. So we signed up for it. I will write about heaven, that is the mountain, in Friday’s blog. I ran out of time…but luckily, not out of oxygen! Stay tuned for the rest of our story.
-Karen Hilliard