Vinicunca

Crazily enough, after a difficult trip the day before, comes another day of gruesome hiking. I had a special booking with Trexperience with a custom tour to visit Red Valley even though it had been closed supposedly but the main hike for the day was Rainbow Mountain, also known as Vinicunca. With my was my guide Elvis. He helped me get a PCR test in Cusco even though I didn't have much cash left and drove me all the way to the mountain. It was a very far place but the views were great. The hike itself was extremely difficult for me since the altitude was very high, the surrounding vistas were amazing and made up for it though. A lot of grazing alpacas were there and there were no tourists, as is with most of my tour in Peru. We had our lunch by the parking lot where a lot of stray dogs started to gather and I couldn't help but give them some of my food. Elvis frequently gave me the perfume to smell that would lessen the effects of the altitude. It was the same perfume I had smelled while doing Ayahuasca and the Machu Picchu trek. It was a very colorful and interesting mountain though the cloudy day didn't make the colors stand out too much. I had a nice photo with the resident alpaca, and hiked a bit more to the top to get better views. I was so fatigued from everything but still had to push on through to see the Red Valley.Read more