09/08/2019 – Palccoyo rainbow mountains, Peru

We woke up at 0600 and got our rucksacks together, headed downstairs and picked up a cereal bar and a roll provided by the hostel, and got greeted at the door by our guide for the day. We got shown into our minivan, where there were a couple of girls already buckled in. We drove to the main plaza and picked up the rest of the guests, who didn’t get the door to door service like we had! The van ended up overfull, our guide sat on an upside down bucket with a blanket on top of it for the 3.5 hour journey each way! After being recommended it by our trekking guide Alex, we had used our hostel host Felippo to organise our tour to the Palccoyo rainbow mountain range, hailed by some as the alternative rainbow mountain tour, and one of Cuscos hidden gems! This is what our adventure was today. A few hours into the journey we stopped in a small community in the mountains to use the bathroom and grab a hot drink. Josh and I had been nodding dogs, asleep in the van up until this point. The rest of the journey was spent looking out at the beautiful mountain scenery, wild alpacas and llamas wandering the land, and small muddy faced children in woolly hats waving from the side of the road to say a friendly hello. At this point in time, I don’t think I need to mention about what the driving/roads were like! We paid a small entrance fee to enter the Palccoyo area (£2.50 each) which I was promised by the guide went to the local Palccoyo community as payment for keeping the roads clear and for looking after the land. I’m not convinced that Peru has cottoned on to sustainable tourism quite yet, so the beauty of visiting these places is almost bittersweet, there are both pros and cons to the tourism. I guess all we can do is try to leave as small a footprint on these places as possible. We arrived and emptied out the van, putting fleeces and coats on. We started at an altitude of about 4600m high so it was sunny but also fresh. It was a gentle uphill path through the mountains, the landscape and the colours were, as expected absolutely mind blowing. From the hike there were a few different viewpoints, from which you can see the three peaks of the three rainbow mountains, part of the Ausangate mountain range. You could also see huge snow capped mountains in the distance.

Josh summed it up by commenting that it felt like we had landed on a different planet. The only reference to our world were the minivans parked up at the bottom and of course the rest of the humans.

We walked for about 1.5 hours in total, getting up to a maximum altitude of 5000m. Josh has been slightly under the weather this week with a cough so noticed the altitude a bit more, but surprisingly, after struggling at Cotopaxi in Ecuador, I actually didn’t struggle at all this time. I suppose that is the benefits of acclimatising to Cusco’s altitude for over a week. However, on the way up to the ‘rock forest’ the highest part of the hike, with huge rocks to climb over and around, we saw someone have a little collapse and require oxygen! We saw a few others really struggling too.

The rock forest provided excellent views, and we were free to roam and climb, but I am sure in time this will be disallowed as it was pretty dangerous territory! Part of the beauty of doing the ‘alternative’ rainbow mountain tour is that there are far fewer visitors. The main rainbow mountain tour, which is called called Vinicunca, can have 1500 visitors in a day, whereas Palccoyo only gets about 60 visitors a day. That is crazy to think, especially as the tours to Vinicunca only started 3 years ago. The fewer tourists’ means that the opportunities for photos are much better, and you can spend more time admiring the view without getting moved on. The rainbow colouration of the mountain range is sedimentary mineral layers visible through erosion. The colours range from white and turquoise to maroon and gold.

The colours are a result of oxidised minerals such as iron oxide and iron sulphite. Our guide told us these mountains had been snow capped under 30 years ago, so it in reality is a real shame that due to global warming the snow is now no longer there. We enjoyed about 2 hours there in total, hiking and taking photos and climbing over the rocks. We chatted with a 9 year old local boy who was perched on one of the rocks observing the tourists from all over the world marvel at his home. Josh gave him his banana and he packed it away in his rucksack for later. We used the small toilet (a hut with a toilet but no running water) and then loaded back into the van. We fell asleep again for a few hours before pulling into a small car park with a building with lots of long tables set up. We were served hot soup and then helped ourselves to a buffet of rice, spaghetti, curry, potatoes and salad and chicha morada to drink. The tours in Peru always seem to include a lunch, which is almost always in a building in the middle of nowhere. Nonetheless, it is always good food and it puts a bit of money back into the smaller local communities. This lunch was prepared by a small group of women whom I saw relaxing and breastfeeding their babies in a smaller cordoned off room at the back of the building. After lunch we climbed back into the van to head back to Cusco. Another 1.5 hours later and a podcast and spotify playlist down, we were dropped in Cuscos main plaza, from which it was easy to walk back to our hostel. We bought ourselves a chocolate bar, had a hot shower and tucked ourselves into bed by about 20:30. Our hostel is so cold that the only bearable place to be is under the three thick woolly blankets on the bed!