the rainbow mountains in peru are quickly jumping to the top of so many travelers bucket
list and you can see why behind me this place is absolutely beautiful lucky for us it is
just a couple hour road trip from cusco to come and visit the mountains we are going
to rewind a couple of hours and show you what a day trip here is all about
morning everybody welcome to cusco at 4 30 in the morning it's actually a lot livelier
than i expected i think it's because so many tours start this early the thing about going
to the rainbow mountains is that there's quite a lot of driving involved there's a couple
hours there and a couple hours back so it is a super early start to a very full day
but the cool thing is they give you breakfast along the way our airbnb is so far kind of
outside the city center that the tour bus can't pick us up so we have to get a taxi
that's taken us here to the middle of the plaza de armas and now we're just waiting
for one of these white panel vans to hopefully be our tour agency that is going to pick us
up
so we're back in the taxi i think we were dropped off at the wrong place and now the
taxi driver is thinking oh wait i think i should drop you guys over here so now we're
just roaming the city downtown of cusco not exactly sure where we're going
i don't think the odometer works but let's hope the uh let's hope the seat belts work
oh shoot i can't even i can't pull it out okay i guess it's not working today what it
seems like at this point and now we missed the van and now we are racing as you can hear
to catch the van so we can get in it this morning is off to a great start
okay we're going on this tour we found the van
that was an adventure at 4 30 in the morning
the guide is saying that if you want to buy some clothing like hats and toques and stuff
you should do it here as opposed to at the rainbow mountains because it's much more expensive
i don't know if he's just saying that because like they want you to buy from here but it's
getting really tempting because it's a lot colder here than it is down in cusco
okay so today is freezing and i need something for my legs because my ankles are showing
and it is very very cold so I'm goigng to attempt to get leg warmers south america style
what if i just go full south america colorful llamas does it match yeah kinda i'm a little
nervous to find out how much they are to be honest these guys have a monopoly on the warm
clothing situation 15 soles five bucks later will i have warm ankles today i don't know
if i'll get any more use out of them after today but i think it's gonna be worth five
bucks just to be warm
i love them already so much warmer okay so breakfast was actually so much better than
I think we both expected it was really nice that it's buffet style like i think we've
done a few of these like events where you go and you get like a breakfast part way through
and they usually like i don't know they're just they're just not quite what you'd hoped
for for a long day but actually that was pretty good and we went back for seconds because
it's buffet and now they have put us back in the vans and we have i think two hours
still of driving to go before we hit the rainbow mountains
nicole's got her new leg warmers ready for anything adventure here I come
what do you think first impressions there hun I can hardly breathe 4900 meters hurts
but i think it's very pretty you can start to see the colours right here
so we just got some oil and you like put on your hands and you rub it in and then you
like smell it and it's like supposed to like open your lungs when you're at elevation here
its like one of the things they give us all the time we're hiking here i love it smells
amazing
all right so we have begun a trek up to the rainbow mountains area now it is important
to note that there are two places to go if you want to visit the rainbow mountains here
in peru they're both all in the same region it's almost kind of like the same mountain
range just a few hours outside of cusco but there's two places the first place is vinicunca
which is the place that many people visit um it's usually the one that you would probably
see on the internet it's usually the one that's pretty crowded and it's been open for over
10 years now and the place that we decided to visit is here palccoyo this is the second
area you can visit the rainbow mountains it is far newer it is far less crowded but just
the same kind of epic views so that's one of the main reasons why we're visiting palccoyo
we chatted with quite a few people in cusco who had been to vinicunca
and they said it's cool but it's like so busy that you just like you hike and you actually
hike for a lot longer it's like over an hour of hiking at altitude this is hard and um
it's just like super super crowded like to the point where your experience is really
impacted so we didn't really want that so we are coming here so far there are not a
lot of folks here and it's like a 15-20 minute hike up and then you just like get to hang
around um so it's a lot less walking at altitude so really good option for those who maybe
aren't huge hikers or have kids or something like that so just a little easier or for those
who have already like quenched their thirst for hiking considering that we just did the
salkantay not too long ago we don't need any more high altitude hiking we are very happy
just getting a ride up the last 15 minutes we'll do on our feet and just enjoy the beauty
of it
so our guide was telling us that the reason the mountains are the rainbow colors is just
because of different mineral deposits um in like in the dirt so you've got clay that's
the red and then they've also got magnesium he said and sulfate to give you the green
and yellow colors as well so it really just comes down to some minerals that make the
place look absolutely gorgeous and i've read online that it's not actually like multiple
colors that you're seeing it's only just a few minerals that create just a few colors
but then when they mix then when you have that overlap that's when you get a few different
colors that almost represents kind of like a rainbow yeah i didn't know that i wouldn't
say it's like close to a rainbow no but it is still multicolored yes it's still a very
interesting phenomenon considering that we're looking at soil we're looking at the dirt
of a mountain that's all different colors wow look at that one hey
oh man i think that you could just wander here for weeks and just see all different
sorts of colors from all the different colors mixing man is stunning stunning so we're taking
a bit of a rest there's a lady here with two alpacas that you can come up and i think pay
a couple soles and you can take a photo which is kind of cool but uh i already have my animal
companion right here this random dog and uh the views here are excellent this is it's
so interesting to see these mountains uh compared to where we were in the salkantay not too
long ago like the salkantay mountains were more like jagged yeah angry and rugged challenging
yeah they're like proper mountains with snow year round and stuff yeah but these ones are
calm and gentle they feel more like hills yeah less daunting hills at almost 5000 meters
above sea level that have been more than enough to take your breath away walking up just a
few few steps every now and then i don't know how these dogs are doing it they're rocking
it
so far this is honestly so nice it's just like super relaxing super chill we're just
like slowly going up and we'll stop take a few photos hang out we saw some llamas you
know check them out like it's just really relaxing
i love how it didn't take a lot of effort to get here and like while nicole and i love
to pursue challenges and you know go out and like try to do big hikes and camping trips
to see beautiful views it's also nice every now and then to be thrown an adventure where
it's super chill and casual with all the reward it's great
yeah you've got a little baby sheep on your leg
so if you are interested in coming and checking out the rainbow mountains for yourself it
is about 100 soles generally to come and have the whole day trip out here plus you pay 15
soles extra to actually come on this site and the reason for that is because this is
actually private property this is someone's land so you of course need to pay for their
permission to come on the land and today our good friends again at peruvian paths and adventures
helped us to set up and organize this day tour for us if you've seen our salkantay trek
video and our machu picchu video you'll know a little bit about them already they are just
a wonderful wonderful tour agency here in cusco who we have come to love of course so
we use them again today
okay it's been a great day but now it's 11 30 and we need to get back to our bus in like
five minutes so we're gonna let you guys go yeah it was it's been an awesome day honestly
we really enjoyed this and all that's left is to do the three and a half hour drive back
to cusco with a stop for lunch somewhere along the way so we will leave you here and we're
gonna catch you in the next one wherever that will be thanks for watching