Rainbow Mountain or Pallay Punchu?

If you came to Cusco for color, there are two mountains to choose from. Rainbow Mountain, also called Vinicunca, is the famous one. Pallay Punchu is newer to visitors and lies farther south. Both leave Cusco before dawn and take the whole day, and in one week we would plan only one of them.

If your choice is still between color and water, between Rainbow Mountain and Humantay Lake, start with that question. We wrote about the lakes in Humantay Lake or the Ausangate lakes?.

Rainbow Mountain

Rainbow Mountain stands at 5,200 meters, nearly two kilometers above Cusco. Its stripes are mineral: iron-rich clay for the red, sulfur-bearing sandstone for the mustard, phyllite for the green. It rises below Ausangate, a sacred Apu in local belief, and opened to visitors only in the last decade.

The tour picks you up around four in the morning and the day runs about twelve hours. The climb is short but steep, on loose, exposed ground in thin air. Horses can be hired for part of it, and the top is on foot.

The color comes out with the sun and fades when the cloud comes in.

Clear skies bring out the stripes, but mountain weather can change fast. The climb warms you quickly, so dress in layers you can take off.

Pallay Punchu

In Quechua, Pallay Punchu means roughly adorned poncho, after the ridge's likeness to the bright weaving of the Andes. It lies in the Layo district of the province of Canas, south of Cusco, with lagoons and high pasture on every side. The summit stands above 4,700 meters.

The climb itself is short, thirty to forty minutes on open ground, and most of the day is road. Breakfast and lunch are at Cusipata on the way. The entry fee is paid on site, in cash in soles. The tour carries an oxygen bottle for the group, and the day is not suitable for anyone prone to altitude sickness.

How to choose

Rainbow Mountain is higher, at 5,200 meters against a little over 4,700, and its climb asks more of your lungs. It is also the better known of the two.

Pallay Punchu has the far shorter climb. If the climb worries you more than the hours in a van, it is the easier of the two.

Choose by the climb you want, not by the photo.

Both are best left until the body has had time to adjust to Cusco's altitude, which is why neither belongs in the first days of a trip. We wrote about this in Why altitude changes the shape of a Cusco trip.

Where it sits in a week

You can see how a high day fits into a week in our free 5-day Cusco route and 7-day Cusco route.