Of course, you have heard about the magnificent Rainbow Mountain in Peru. Over the past 10 years, the Vinicunca rainbow mountain has become the latest Peruvian phenomenon after Machu Picchu! This colorful gift of Mother Nature has captured the fascination and hearts of many a traveler to Peru, and even Instagrammers! for its remarkable colorful display in the Vilcanota mountain range of the magnificent Andes mountains. However, did you know that the famous Rainbow Mountain is not the only Rainbow Mountain in Peru, or in the same mountain range? Palcoyo Rainbow Mountain is the colorful, quieter sister mountain in the Vilcanota Mountain Range near Ausangate and only receives a fraction of the visitors. Palcoyo Rainbow Mountain is easier to get to and offers spectacular natural landscapes all around. Beyond the stunning panorama of Palcoyo Mountain, you also have the bonus of seeing the other natural features of the region!
The colors of the Rainbow Mountains of Palcoyo are due to marine sediment in the water that once covered the Andes Mountain range. The age of these sediments dates back to about 65 million years ago. Over the years, these sediments formed layers into the color layers of Palcoyo. The movement of tectonic plates in the area raised these sedimentary deposits that became the mountains. The colors of the Palcoyo Mountain in Peru are caused by the natural minerals found throughout this magnificent stripy mountain range. Minerals such as sulfur and iron, as well as many others, paint the rolling Andean scenery. The red tints are produced by iron oxide. The rainbow-like appearance is created by the sediment of the different minerals. This gives the mountain its red, lilac, turquoise, and gold stripes.
On a Palcoyo Rainbow mountain tour, you actually get 3 for 1! What a bargain! Palcoyo consists of 3 rainbow-colored mountains, a sweeping red valley, the stone forest of Ccacca Loma with spectacular rock formations, agricultural terraces carved into the mountains, and awe-inspiring views of the sacred Apu Ausanagate Mountain in the distance. You will also exchange the thousands of tourists that visit Rainbow Mountain every day for rural farming communities, llama herders, alpacas, and scenery to knock your socks off! Not only is the Palcoyo Mountain is included on this trip, but the red valleys and surrounding terrain are also a sight to behold. All around you, you can marvel at the never-ending grasslands and rolling hills of the Andes. These are home to numerous alpacas, birds, and the small native farming communities of the Vilcanota mountain range. If you are up for an extra 20 minute walk uphill, you can visit the otherworldly stone forest, found at an elevation of 4900 m / 16,076 ft. This unique geographical feature is full of tall, standing stones, giving the illusion of a forest of trees, made of stone!
The kaleidoscopic mountains of Palcoyo offer a more relaxed, more remote, more spectacular, more varied, and more astounding surrounding scenery than its more famous counterpart, with fewer travelers, less altitude, less walking distance, and less stress! The Palcoyo Rainbow Mountain Trek is perfect for a family hike or for those who are not used to hiking long distances at high elevations. This Trek is much less demanding and is only a 45-minute stroll, the perfect option if you’re not used to trekking long distances. These Rainbow Mountains are a better option if you have any physical issues or problems with acclimatization, as it is a less strenuous hike. (You will still need to acclimatize for 2 days in Cusco, prior to the trek).
Visit the Palcoyo Rainbow Mountains when you travel to the Cusco region and enjoy lesser-visited spectacular nature in this spectacular section of the Andes!
Fire away with your questions and snag some tailor-made wisdom from our experts to make your adventure epic!
We will begin our Palcoyo Rainbow Mountain Adventure bright and early, at 5:00 am when we collect you from your Cusco Hotel hotel. We Will then head in our private vehicle to the small village of Cusipata where we will enjoy our delicious buffet breakfast. This will set us in good stead for the adventure ahead of us! We will drive for approximately 1 and a half hours to reach the Palcoyo Rainbow Mountains trailhead. Even from the trailhead, we will be blessed by Mother Nature’s gifts as we are surrounded by the spectacular, other-worldly landscapes of the Vilcanota mountain range in the Andes of Peru. Before we set off on this relatively short hike, your expert guide will give you a brief explanation of the Palcoyo region and some safety guidelines. We will then set out on this remote and mind-blowing adventure, hiking for about 40 minutes, depending on your pace. After taking some time to take in exactly what we are witnessing, with awe-inspiring views over the Red Valley and the 3 Palcoyo Rainbow Mountains, we will then have the opportunity to visit the beautiful stone forest of Ccacca Loma. After spending some time in this magical landscape and taking photos to capture the stunning beauty of the high-elevation Vilcanota range, we will say goodbye to this remarkable part of the Andes and return along the same Trail, where our driver will be waiting for our return journey to Cusco. We should arrive around 5:00 p.m. full of memories of a unique and special section of The Andes, where very few people visit on their Cusco adventures.
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Valencia Travel was amazing to work with, and I would highly recommend them for any new travelers. Special thanks again to Andes (guide) , Maria (agent/coordinator) , and Washington (driver) . Thank you for making this a trip to remember for a lifetime.
Valencia Travel was amazing to work with, and I would highly recommend them for any new travelers. Special thanks again to Andes (guide) , Maria (agent/coordinator) , and Washington (driver) . Thank you for making this a trip to remember for a lifetime.
We truly had an incredle experience from booking with Maria, to meeting Miguel upon arrival at the airport, and of course trekking with our incredible guide Aldo and the amazing porters who helped make trekking much more comfortable and luxurious than we're used to. We couldn't believe the 3 course meals they cooked up. Truly blew us away.
The trek itself is incredible as you're able to see so many Inca sites along the way before arriving to Macchupicchu. The mountain range was beautiful.
Aldo our guide was the best! He was very information and taught us so much about the incas and knew so much about all the trees, wildlife, and fauna we saw along the trek. He's been guiding for many years and thanks to his experience and forethought we managed to catch amazing views away from the other groups of trekkers and were the first to arrive to Macchupicchu making for an even more private experience. I highly recommend Aldo!
Valencia travel is a local company that supports all the locals they employ. I highly recommend them for any bookings!
**tip: definitely give yourself 3 days in Cusco before hiking in order to acclimate to the altitude. We saw a couple turn around due to issues with altitude.
We truly had an incredle experience from booking with Maria, to meeting Miguel upon arrival at the airport, and of course trekking with our incredible guide Aldo and the amazing porters who helped make trekking much more comfortable and luxurious than we're used to. We couldn't believe the 3 course meals they cooked up. Truly blew us away.
The trek itself is incredible as you're able to see so many Inca sites along the way before arriving to Macchupicchu. The mountain range was beautiful.
Aldo our guide was the best! He was very information and taught us so much about the incas and knew so much about all the trees, wildlife, and fauna we saw along the trek. He's been guiding for many years and thanks to his experience and forethought we managed to catch amazing views away from the other groups of trekkers and were the first to arrive to Macchupicchu making for an even more private experience. I highly recommend Aldo!
Valencia travel is a local company that supports all the locals they employ. I highly recommend them for any bookings!
**tip: definitely give yourself 3 days in Cusco before hiking in order to acclimate to the altitude. We saw a couple turn around due to issues with altitude.
The Porters and Chef Filex were exceptional and went above and beyond with all our needs.
I was surprised with a Birthday Cake on our hike, and I had no idea someone could make and decorate a cake in a tent.
It was incredibly mind-blowing.
I highly recommend them to anyone looking to do the Inca Trail.
We are extremely pleased with the service we received.
I give them A++++++
Un’altro aspetto importante è stata la guida per Macchu Picchu, Washington! Super appassionato del posto e della storia, vi coninvolgerà con i suoi racconti e le sue spiegazioni. E’ davvero una guida molto esperta e professionale!
Thank you for such a brilliant trek!
Our chef, Gregorio, "Goyo", had the best food of all of our Peru!! the culinary expertise of this guy whom planned a menu according to our hike plan, carbs and proteins, and we had plenty.. .I mean plenty to eat. The porters (all 10), with leads from Climico, and special mention to Fortunato who would met us at the end of the trail to help carry our personal packs to our porters applauding our days hard accomplishment. Along the entire trail, Wilbur encouraging the porter of other competitors as his "little brother" to continue to be strong as they quickly passed us on the trail. My respect to the team of Valencia Travel, the porters, head chef and his assistant and mostly to Wilbur for delivering an experience that I encourage anyone to participate in. Thank you Wilbur. we the 7 women from California, USA will forever be your "Flowers".
There were some challenges communicating with the office staff with some questions we had before the trek and booking it, though once we had our meeting with Guillermo it was all sorted out.
After a lot of research, Valencia Travel appeared as the most qualitative and professional agency organizing the excursions we wanted to take part in. We signed in for day trip to the rainbow mountain and had an amazing experience. The guide spoke English and shared a lot of interesting facts with us, the food was delicious and the general activity was perfectly organisez.
Thanks to this very positive experience, we decided to do the 4 days Lares Trail to Machu Picchu with Valencia Travel. Waouw. We spent the 4 days talking about how impressed we were about the professionalism of the agency. The trek was wonderful, the nature breathtaking but the most impressive part was the service, the kindness of the staff, their organisation,… Everything is in the details, the camp are very confortable, they even bring you tea in your tent to wake you up in the morning!
The food was beyond expectations. At every meal, we had a salad, a soup, a main dish and once we even had a cake that they baked in the tents! Being vegan, we are always a bit scared that it could be a problem for trekkings, but with Valencia it is not at all! We had some of the best foods of our trip during our trekking!
I am so happy that we did the Lares trekking with Valencia as there is no better way to reach the sacred site of Machu Picchu than by doing a trekking in the nature. It is a very special place and trekking to reach it definitely add some magic to the experience!
To conclude, I would highly recommend Valencia for any activities in Peru, it will make your experience unforgettable!!
At 55 and with a helpful dose of camaraderie from my younger trek-mates, including my 16 year-old niece who managed the ascents and descents with aplomb, I felt a sense of accomplishment in completing the trek, which is more vertical than horizontal and ranges from about 9,000 to 12,000 feet over three days. Hiking the trail does require above-average fitness for the middle-aged. No unmanageable parts but a walking stick, reliable shoes, dependable leg muscles and accommodating joints, a relatively light backpack of essentials, and stops along the way to gulp down the thin air, take in the jaw-dropping vistas, pause for passing porters, and make way for grazing llamas—all are required to push through. So is a large reserve of self-deprecation. Alex and other minders were more than indulgent while keeping us all on the move.
Reaching Machu Picchu at the end was paradoxically awe-inspiring and anti-climatic given the splendor of the journey to get there. At the end of it, getting on the train that deposits and returns the vast majority of visitors in the space of a day, I simply couldn’t imagine seeing Machu Picchu without doing the trek.
If you are hiking the Inca Trail I highly recommend to go through Valencia Travel. Ask to have Elistan as your guide. The porters are treated very well. They have good hiking shoes, and attire to wear. (though if they could get backpacks that include waist straps I think that would be great!). Ask for Luis to be your cook. I have never eaten so well on a vacation. Luis is amazing at what he can cook up on the trail, we are talking three course meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and the food is presented as if it was at a 5 star hotel. Incredible!!!
My only other desire is if Valencia offered a Recipe Book of the meals eaten on the trail. I would totally purchase such a piece of "gold".
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