Rainbow Mountain, Peru: Beauty Beyond in the Andes

I have always wanted to travel the world more.

Like, really travel it.

See the things I’ve read about. Stand somewhere completely unfamiliar. Eat the food. Meet the people. Stare at something in nature and think, how in the hell did THAT happen?

I hope someday I get to do a whole lot more of it.

Until then, I thought we could do a little exploring together.

And we're starting here.

Rainbow Mountain, Peru

Have you seen this place?!I've always wanted to make my way here some day.  Bucket list type of stuff right here:

Its name is Vinicunca, also known as Rainbow Mountain or the Mountain of Seven Colors, high in the Andes near Cusco, Peru.  

And those colors are real.

The reds, greens, yellows and other bands running across the mountainside come from different mineral-rich geological layers in the earth. As you approach Vinicunca, you can actually begin to see the colored minerals appearing throughout the hills.

Which immediately sent my brain somewhere else entirely.

Back to my crystal days...

Before Ella Vatour, I spent years working around gemstones, crystals and minerals.

And while I know the word crystals can send people in about sixteen different directions 😂, one of the things I genuinely loved was simply learning about the earth itself.

The colors.

The formations.

The fact that something could sit beneath the ground for an unimaginable amount of time and come out looking like a piece of art.

Rainbow Mountain feels like that idea blown up to an absolutely ridiculous scale.

Instead of holding one beautiful mineral in your hand, you're looking at an entire mountainside painted by geology.

No paint.

No filter.

Just Earth showing off a little.

This one is going on the list

Getting there isn't exactly a casual stroll. Rainbow Mountain sits at very high altitude in the Andes, and visiting it generally involves traveling from the Cusco region and hiking into the mountain landscape.

But I think that's part of why I want to see it.

I want to stand there and see those colors with my own eyes after earning the trip it took to get to it.

I want to remember how enormous and strange and beautiful this planet actually is.

And maybe that's part of what I want this little series to be about too.

There is so much more to see.

So much more to learn.

And so many places we haven't been yet.

Rainbow Mountain, you're officially on my someday list.

What's on yours?