A colorful day

And so came the day I had been longing for for a while. Pickup at the hotel at 3:30 am was a rough start but if you are going to the Rainbow mountains that is a must. The 5 026 meter over sea level peak (almost as high as Mt Elbrus, Europe’s highest mountain) needs to be done before noon. We spent three hours in a mini bus including one stop for typical Peruvian breakfast consisting of oats, bread with jam and butter, pancake and coffee. Fair enough. The last hour of the drive went through an unpaved road straight into the Andres mountains passing by tiny villages.

The climb

At 9 we started our hike from the car park towards the colorful mountains. I first got to know about them a year ago when scrolling Instagram but when doing deeper research I learnt that it opened first in 2016 for tourists. It was pretty cold and I wished I had a pair of gloves.

We started the hike as a group and it was a whole new experience being at this altitude. The air was thin and it was tougher to breath when your pulse increased. Altitudes sickness is common so the guides were prepared with oxygen and you could also eat coca leaves in order to avoid it. I had never been this high up before so I had no idea how my body would react but it was fine. When it felt tough to climb I just stopped and breath, had a zip of water and then I was fine to the new level.

The view was like something I never seen before. Colorful and with peaks in the background covered by snow. I talked to a lady at my hotel that had been doing the hike two days before and at that time the whole valley was covered with snow so they could not see any colorful mountains.

If you couldn’t or didn’t wanted to walk you could go up with a horse. The hike itself was easy but the altitude made it a challenge. I don’t know how many night meters we walked but would guess 500.

I made it! 5 026 m.a.s.l

I made it to the top! It was freezing cold up there and once every then clouds passed by so you couldn’t see anything. A dream of mine when I was a kid was to touch the clouds and if you haven’t done it before you could do it here. The view was fascinating from all angels and if you had brought your passport you could get a stamp from up there.

The climb down took an hour and when we all was ready to go it started to hail and rain. On the way back we stopped for lunch, some kind of mixed buffet and traditional soup, not my cup of tea but luckily I had my own snack with me. The rainbow mountains is definitely a place to put on your bucket list if you like to see what Mother Nature has created. Added to your bucket list already or did you got inspired now?

/ Pernilla that had a fantastic day in the mountains