Trekking holiday in Peru, Mount Ausangate

Environment

On our treks we buy fresh local produce. In preference we choose local over imported goods, encouraging the use of Andean products in our cooking. We minimize waste by using products with minimum packaging, leaving no litter and keeping all water sources clean, leaving camp-sites cleaner than we find them. Rubbish is carried out.

We operate our treks together with a Cusco company, owned and managed locally. We employ local staff and involved in their ongoing training. All our trek staff do not carry more than the maximum load and are provided with tents and food. We pay and treat our staff fairly. We support the Tourism Concern Porters Policy.


Clean burning fuel is used to cook meals. We use biodegradable detergents when washing the cooking and eating utensils. If any part of our tour or trek is operated by another company, we try to ensure that high standards are maintained.

We are continuing to undertake community projects such as clothing and school equipment donations. Each year we donate some money to the communities our Inca Trail porters come from.
We support a children’s health care project in Cusco. We are happy to distribute your donations of much needed warm clothes and shoes to Peruvian children through this organization - please contact us for details of how you can help.

Community

Since 2006 we have been able to support the Huchuy Yachaq community project in the marginalised neighbourhood of Hermanos Ayar, on the outskirts of Cusco, with the help of everybody who has travelled with us. We donate USD $3000 a year to this community project.

The project has been set up by volunteer social workers and teachers to provide much needed social and educational support to the children and families of this neighbourhood. Children are encouraged to attend study and games sessions held each afternoon and participate in holiday projects. Our contributions so far have paid for educational books and games, tables and chairs, improvements to the structure of the basic community owned building and the addition of functioning toilets, materials for the children to take to school, school books, holiday programmes.

We are now also financially supporting the UK registered charity Amantani which is running boarding houses for children in the remote Andean region around Cusco. It is very much in keeping with our ethos of small scale, targetted help which is educational and sustainabale.

And we are planting trees as part of a reforestation project in Peru.