DESTINATIONS SUSTAINABLE TRAVEL | PERU
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: Dancers in traditional dress; chef Emerson Huaman; G Adventures’ founder Bruce Poon Tip; tour guide Edward Pacheco PICTURES: G Adventures; Andrew McQuarrie
exper expert ASK THE
BRIAN YOUNG managing director,
EMEA, G Adventures
“For travel agents, it’s not just about selling an amazing tour, it’s the impact that amazing tour makes. That’s what
differentiates us from other companies and that’s what we would like travel agents to understand and be able to explain to customers.”
50 30 NOVEMBER 2023
WORKING UP AN APPETITE More food awaits at the foot of the valley, where we visit Parwa Community Restaurant in Huchuy Qosqo. Set up in 2014 with help from G Adventures’ non-profit partner, Planeterra, the restaurant has created jobs as cooks and serving staff for around 20 women from the local area. “There didn’t used to be any work for the women in this community – it was just men who worked,” says Helga Benito, who has been the restaurant’s manager since 2017. The money generated by the enterprise goes towards helping the 70 to 80 families in the area, says Benito, with the community now enjoying easier access to drinking water, as well as medication, childcare, affordable internet and a range of schoolbooks. When I ask her how the residents feel about the arrival of tourists in the area, she says they are “very glad”. “It’s working very well for them and their families,”
says Benito, who points to additional benefits beyond the wages. Through the restaurant, women have learnt new cooking techniques while developing the ability to pull together and work as a team. After lunch, the local Cusqueña lager flows and a
band plays in the courtyard while the waitresses tap their toes and twirl their colourful traditional dresses. When the party is over, Celia Chauca Santa Maria of the Huchuy Qosqo Association, the body that owns the restaurant, speaks about the group’s hopes for the future.
Poon Tip wants to show that
tourism can be the greatest means of wealth distribution the world has ever seen
“We’re really happy that you’ve visited us and we’re
really grateful that this project is still going on,” she says. “We’re going to go forward working together.” It’s the embodiment of what G Adventures founder
Bruce Poon Tip – who is here to see the project in action – says has been his mission over the past 33 years. He wants to show that tourism has the potential to be the “greatest means of wealth distribution the world has ever seen”, and Parwa Community Restaurant is a striking example of that idea in practice.
GENERATION GAME Peru is quite rightly celebrated for its cuisine, but when our visit to Ccaccaccollo Women’s Weaving Co-operative comes with an announcement that a platter of roasted guinea pigs is being served, I quickly find something else to occupy my attention. Instead of tucking into crispy rodents, I watch enrapt
as grandmothers, mothers and children showcase techniques that have been passed down through the generations via countless hours of observation.
²
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