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About 100 km southeast of Cusco, Peru, there is a mountain-shaped rainbow.
It is the Seven Colors Mountain, also known as Vinicunca or Rainbow, located in the Cordillera de la Vilcanota, at 5.2 thousand meters above sea level , in the district of Pitumarca.
Its slopes and ridges are decorated by fringes in intense shades of fuchsia, turquoise, purple, and gold.
Since 2016, the visual spectacle that the mountain offers has attracted visitors, Pitumarca tourism secretary Haydee Pacheco told BBC News.
According to local media, the number of tourists has gone from a few tens to about 1,000 a day, despite the cold and the altitude.
Driven by social networks, the growth of the popularity of the seven-color mountain has made it appear in the international rankings of tourist attractions.
In August 2017, for example, Vinicunca appeared on the list of the hundred places you should know before you die, compiled by Business Insider.
The local tourism boom is recent, but the history of the mountain and its beautiful colors began millions of years ago.
The colors that decorate the slopes of the mountain come "From a complex geological history with marine, lacustrine and fluvial sediments," according to a report from Cusco's Cultural Landscaping Cultural Direction office.
These sediments, transported by the water that once covered the whole place, date from the Tertiary and Quaternary, that is from 65 million to 2 million years old.
Over time, sediments formed layers (with grains of different sizes) that now constitute the colored fringes.
The movement of the tectonic plates of the region raised these sediments until they became what is now the mountain.
Little by little, the different layers have their flashy colors. They result from the oxidation of different minerals – due to the humidity of the area – and also from the erosion of these.
This was explained to BBC News geologist Cesar Muñoz, a member of the Peruvian Geological Society (SGP).
According to a study by the Office of Cultural Landscaping and in his own research, Muñoz explained the composition of each layer, according to the color:
– Rosa or fuchsia: a mixture of Red clay, sand.
– White: sandstone (quartz sand) and limestone.
– Purple or lavender: silt (mixture of clay and calcium carbonate) and silicates.
– Red: argillites and clays.
– Green: clays rich in ferromagnesian minerals (mixture of iron and magnesium) and copper oxide.
– Yellowish brown, mustard or gold: limonites, calcareous sandstones rich in sulphurous minerals (badociated with sulfur).
Fabián Drenkhan, a researcher at the Institute of Science of Nature of the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, told BBC News that these mixtures also contain iron oxides, usually reddish in color.
 / i.s3.glbimg.com/v1/AUTH_59edd422c0c84a879bd37670ae4f538a/internal_photos/bs/2018/H/7/ecq0SuRya7Q14HBjqfdA/ap18122164408729-1-.jpg "Résidents de Pitumarca, Pérou, dans la région de Mountain of Colours (photo: Martin Mejia / AP)")
[19659011] Residents of Pitumarca, Peru, in the region of the Mountain of Colors (Photo: Martin Mejia / AP)
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But, if these flashy colors already decorates the mountain A million years ago, why did it only become famous recently?
Articles published by Peruvian and international media suggest that Vinicunca was discovered because climate change melted the snow that covered it.
However, the geologists consulted in the report say that they are not absolutely sure.
Juan Carlos Gómez of the Geophysical Institute of Peru (IGP) said that the mountain was only partially covered with ice and that it was receiving snow temporarily until the beginning from the 1990s.
Fabián Drenkhan, in turn, said no believe that the summit has been a glacier in the last decades or decades.
"I have no evidence of what has actually happened on this mountain, and I would be very cautious in saying that climate change has left Vinic uncovered, but, yes, we can say that there was a fairly strong glacial melt in the vicinity "says Dernkhan.
The people of Pitumarca say that there was no snow in the last 70 years, according to Haydee Pacheco, of the Ministry of Tourism.
Pacheco explains that the mountain has gained popularity thanks to the pbadage of tourists on the path of Ausangate, a sacred hill for the inhabitants of Cusco.
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