7. No pain no view — Machu Picchu to the left series

I was bashed at Rainbow Mountain hike. The bus dropped us at the starting point at the aptitude of above 4,000 meters. The actual hike was only 5k to the summit which was at 5,029 meters. Yet it took me two hours and I suffered a bad headache going up. During the miserable climb, I teamed up with a Brazilian girl. She was from San Paolo and worked in photography. I learned two valuable things from her. First San Paulo was not just a boring capital city. It’s very cultural and close to nature. Second, she showed me how to edit the picture on Instagram. When I complained the color of my photos in front of Rainbow Mountain looked awful. She took my phone and quickly fixed it by editing a few dimensions. She proudly told me, “Every time my boyfriend tries to post something on Instagram, he always asks me to edit the pictures for him first.”

We two started pretty fast and that didn’t last long. Another four people from our tour group caught up with us, “You need to pace yourself at this attitude.” They were unnecessarily slow at the beginning but now we were left behind by them. Along the trail the local Indians offered horse rides and they can spot tiresome and struggle of the hikers like sharks smell blood. “Caballo libro” (horse available), the Indians hawked us for horse rides as we dragged our legs climbing up. We two looked at each other, “We are not those lazy people. It’s a hike. What do you expect?” Initially we were really firm. Gradually, it turned into we-sticking-to-it-quite-long-and-better-see-it-through. At one point, I forgot who was the first one to admit that we should take a horse ride from the beginning and then the other couldn’t agree more.

It’s interesting to find how human’s body responds to the external environment. Back then, I moved slowly, spoke slowly, breathed slowly and even thought slowly. Everything was in a slow motion. I remembered my Spanish teacher, who came from Lima, mocked Bolivian were such lazy people. At that altitude, I suddenly felt I understood them. Of course they were slow and not that efficient to get things done. I bet most of people simply lie down and do nothing at that high altitude.

But between the moments that we were catching our breath, we did make some chitchat to make things less unbearable. One amusing thing I heard was Brazilian thought Peruvian were so lazy! Well, I guess there are always worse people out there to make us feel good.

I constantly think if I’m the only one on the trail, I probably wouldn’t make it. As you go up, you feel less and less comfortable and you don’t know if your body can take it. You don’t know the boundaries. But when you see other people who are not that different from or superior than you can make it, you get this untested confidence in yourself. I’ve been asked a few times what’s my drive and purpose (ironically those questions only popped up during the job hunting phases). I always answered, “To find out my boundaries.” Every time, win or lose doesn’t matter. It’s all a process to help me test my boundary.

The last 100 meters to the summit was steep and windy. When I said it’s a summit, it’s more of a view point for Rainbow Mountain. You can’t trespass the actual Rainbow Mountain. Instead, people climb to another mount right facing Rainbow mountain and from there take the famous Rainbow Mountain shot. Not all the people will climb to the very top. And along the last 20-30 meters you can get a good view at any spot. So even you are not guaranteed to get a clean shot with no people in the background like those photos showed on the Instagram, you definitely will find space and chill for a while. It was a moment that you won’t forget. After grinding through the last one hour of headache, now I can sit down, rest and enjoy the view. I felt great.

This has set a high bar for my Peruvian trip. I can’t wait for the upcoming trips.