Imagine a mountain rising over 5,000 metres above sea level, unfurling like a cloak of oriental silk, streaks of red, green, ochre, blue, violet and gold blending into a panorama so surreal it feels drawn by a child’s hand. Its name is Vinicunca, or “The Mountain of Seven Colours,” and despite its almost poetic name, it doesn’t grant any favours.
Rainbow Mountain: the mountain that stole the colours of the rainbow.
It looks like it’s been painted by a careless artist, one who disregards all the rules of landscape and mixes colours without restraint. But no. Rainbow Mountain, deep in the Peruvian Andes, is entirely natural. No filters, no Photoshop. Just minerals, wind, sunlight, and millennia of patient geology.
Getting there demands breath, determination and a touch of adventure. From Cusco, it’s about a three-hour drive through winding roads and high plains dotted with llamas and alpacas, before the real work begins: the hike. Short but intense, it takes place at an altitude where even breathing feels like a privilege. Every step is earned, yet every pause rewards you with a deeper breath, the kind that connects you to nature in its rawest, most humbling form.
The beauty of Vinicunca isn’t just visual —it’s physical. You feel it in the thin air that bites your cheeks, in the silence that seems to amplify the colours, in the light that shifts every few minutes, repainting the mountain like a living canvas. It’s one of those places that you don’t simply look at, you cross it, endure it, listen to it.
But, as with many “Instagram-famous” destinations, there’s a flip side. In just a few years, Rainbow Mountain has gone from a local secret to one of South America’s most photographed sites. Tourism has brought economic opportunities to Andean communities, but also environmental strain: eroded paths, litter, exhausted horses and that unmistakable hum of too much humanity.
And yet, Vinicunca endures. When the clouds part and the sun ignites its mineral stripes, you realise the mountain still holds the upper hand. It watches from above, unmoved, reminding you that true beauty is never easy, nor endless, it demands respect, restraint, and, sometimes, a little distance.
As you make your way back down, a bit dizzy from the altitude and the awe, you understand that the mountain has taught you something: that the truest kind of beauty isn’t the one you conquer, but the one that leaves you breathless —quite literally.
Author: Reo Aromi
Photos by © Sofia Guaico | McKayla Crump | Jan Kronies | Jean Vella
Stay curious.
