Visiting Rainbow Mountain without a guide.

Rainbow Mountain, also known as Vinicunca Mountain is one of the earth’s most amazing natural wonders. Until recently it was concealed under ice and snow until global warming unfortunately caused the glaciers to melt, unveiling this natural marvel. Its possible to hike the mountain, one of the most popular excursions from Cusco but bear in mind the unfortunate reason why we are able to do so now.

When you’re in Cusco you will see tour operators lining every street and almost all of them will have the photo of the imfamous Rainbow Mountain outside advertising tours to it.

Most of the tours cost between 60-100 PEN (€ 16-27) . The cheapest I saw advertised was 55 PEN (€ 15) and that includes transport, breakfast and lunch and entrance to Rainbow Mountain. All of the tours seem to leave at a ridiculous hour in the morning, actually the middle of the night. Some leaving as early at 2 am, others giving you a lie on until 4 am.

Rainbow Mountain has exploded in popularity in recent years and we’d heard about the hoards of people hoping off the buses to tackle the mountain and jostle for space to take pictures.

From Instagram you would imagine this empty multicoloured mountain with colours so distinguishable you can see all the colours of the rainbow. As I’ve realised not much every looks like it does on Instagram so I was glad of the for warning I received about rainbow Mountain.

I had read a blog about doing rainbow Mountain yourself without a tour or guide. I’ve grown to dislike organised tours and steer clear of them when I can. Seeing as there was four of us together, I asked a around a few taxi drivers the price to bring us there, wait for us and bring us back to Cusco, all at reseaonable hours. After asking around I got a decent price of 250 PEN (€ 68) to pick us from our hostel at 7.30 am and to return us later that day. We avoided any unnecessary stops and arrived at 10.30 to Rainbow Mountain. It’s a long winding and unpaved road for most of it. The entrance fee is only 10 PEN (€ 2. 80) which we paid at the gate. I had suggested 8 am to leave to the taxi driver but he said he thought it was too late and he thought we should leave earlier. Still after visiting it I’m not sure what the obsession with getting there early is.

By 10.30 when we set off a lot of the groups were coming down from the mountain and we knew we would have the mountain mostly to ourselves. The hike isn’t a long one, it takes about an hour to 90 mins if you don’t have a raging hangover and aren’t suffering from sleep deprevation like we all were from being out in Cusco the night before. The hike is difficult due to the altitude but everyone makes it. There are kids, old people and all sorts making it to the top. There are also horses you can pay a small fee to ride to the top if you’re really struggling.

When we were leaving the mountain there were about 2 other people on it. The mountain is truly magical and I could appreciate the colours of the soil and the sheer beauty of the surrounding snowy peaks once the crowds had disapatted.

After descending rainbow Mountain we headed for Red Valley. Some may say this is the real treasure and much more impressive than rainbow Mountain. Only about 10% of the people go to red valley aswel so you don’t have a fraction of the crowds here.

It’s an easier climb than rainbow Mountain and only adds on about 30 mins on the way back to the car park. The entrance to Red Valley is 10 PEN (€ 2. 80) also.

Our taxi driver had agreed 3 hours in total which is ample time to visit rainbow Mountain, Red Valley, take all the pictures and get back to the car park. On the way back the route was deserted and it had a completely different feel to it. I felt a million miles away from civilization surrounded by snow capped mountains, lamas and rolling hills. The only other human around was the odd local lady leading a donkey.

We left to head back to cusco at 1.30 pm and arrived back at 4.30 pm. We got back before some of the groups who had left at 3.30 am and dogged the mediocre breakfast and lunch inevitably consisting of stale bread and jam and watery soup and rice.

For us the weather got better as the day went on. The clouds dispersed, the sun came out to warm us up and the viability was perfect. I think this can be a concern if leaving later but fos us, it only got better. When we arrived there were still alot of buses there so we could have left Cusco at 8.30am and really had the place to ourselves from the minute we arrived. It is fairly cold though at the top of rainbow Mountain, its been known to snow there, especially during rainy season so come prepared!

Top tips:

• Time- 9 hours. (6 hours driving return and 3 hours hiking return with plenty of photo stops).
• Cost- 82.5 PEN/ € 22.50 (taxi and 20 PEN in entrance fees).
• Best time to go- depart Cusco after 8 am. No need to leave any earlier.