Peru so far has been about under promising and over delivering.

Christmas Eve here is a free day, so can rest from the full on pace or do your own thing.

I had heard about Rainbow mountain and spoken to Marco our guide about it. He was nonchalant, you know a lot of those pics are with filters, it’s rainy season there may be cloud, it’s 4 hours there and 4 hours back- and then there’s the altitude it’s over 5000m, let’s just check the weather closer to the time and see..

Well we are closer, and the weather looks good , so Marco how about it?

Four of us were interested in going, so with a quick word and $109us we were booked and told to be ready for a pick up at 5am for a 4 hour drive to cover the aprox 200km.

I had heard about rainbow mountain, seen teams of two puff their way up on Amazing race , seen various versions of pictures from relatively bland to over the top technicolour. They are a new attraction, first “discovered” in 2016, the result of snow melt from climate change. Yeah, I know that does put a lense on things.

But undeterred I confirmed and was ready for the pick up at 5am and the long drive with our guide and a huge mini bus.

Breakfast was arranged and included ( thanks intrepid) and then we turned off the main road where we started going up, and the roads got narrower and windier, up and up we went. Ears started to pop, the landscape thinned out and we saw less and less vegetation. The housing we passed was becoming more and more basic, lamas started appearing, then we were above the snow line and still we kept ascending, to 4700m. Looks like I was going to get a white Christmas after all.

Our intrepid guide had decided we would go to Palcoyo , a new site only open in the past year. Less tourists , less of a big incline hike, and the chance to see multiple rainbow sites. Folks this is a brand new site the roads have only just been graded to allow tourist vehicles, and currently they are averaging 20 visitors a day. That is about to change. Once the IG crowd get hold of this it won’t be that way for long. I’ve got mixed feelings about the whole thing but I’ll talk about that in a bit. The scenery was unlike anything I have seen before. Trust me , these pictures do not give it justice. The scale, the colours even. Just incredible!

You immediately felt the altitude, but that shouldn’t be a surprise Everest base camp sits at 5200m and we would peak at 5000m, for me it starts with a headache, breathlessness and then my eyes hurt, dizziness from the lack of oxygen, I had my blood oxygen reader with me and I hit a low of 74. I’ve been in the 90’s and at sea level below 90 is hospitalisation level , so that’s you’ll definitely notice it and that became evident as I ascended!

There was so much to see up there, glaciers, Lamas, mountain ranges incredible rock formations, people and these pictures do not give justice to the colours we could see. Partly it was overcast so that dulled things , but on the ground, there were blues, green, yellows, reds…just incredible!

We also got to see some glaciers these are particularly important as they were where their mummified ancestors were kept. They are, like everywhere in retreat.

And then there were the rock formations, just incredible.

With more rainbow on the background.

Then there is the flora and fauna , delicate and unique,

So why uncomfortable, well, a few things. Firstly , we were, as you can see from the pictures, trampling all over these sites. We were within the rules , and they did have guidelines, but still, once numbers increase, I hate to think what will happen.

The local people are it seems desperately poor, no services, subsistance living on potatoes and lamas and it feels like they’re about to be exposed to the world of mass tourism. I have no idea how this is being managed, if at all for their benefit , but you had grandmothers posing with their lamas for a few soles and children selling bits and pieces to the passing tourists.

What this means for them, I have no idea, we bought a couple of key rings from the boy. We told him to keep the change ( probably $2.50) he looked at us and said. Thank you for your gift, now I must give you something and gave us both a chocolate bar. I fear how that type of innocence will be exploited but in the moment it was so lovely!

Am I participating in this? Probably, even writing this with good intention is not necessarily helpful, and I strongly suspect that is why this was not a formal part of the intrepid trip , I don’t think this would meet their community standards. Which is great.

As a tourist, it was an incredible experience, and I was very fortunate to get in when I did, I do hope that this is being done in conjunction with the local people.

Could this trip be any more diverse ?