Activities in Vicos

During your visit to Vicos you will be staying in a lodge very close to a Quechua-family's home. They will cook for you and ensure that you will have the deepest intercultural experience ever by making you a part of their everyday life. The man will be your personal guide throughout the days and explain you everything about his life. He will show you his lands and the crops he grows on them. He will introduce you to his family and tell you about his kids. You will see them coming back from school and you might even find yourself helping them with their homework or with the household tasks they receive from their mother. She will explain you all about the way she cooks, the ingredients she uses, where they come from and how they will be prepared. It is really great to realise that practically everything in the lives of the Quechua Indians comes from their backyard. It is so interesting to see the way they co-operate with nature, so many things that most people from Western countries have already forgotten for a very long time.

Some of the activities that you can realize are:

• You will stay in comfortable lodges with basic needs and privacy. They are all standing close to the house of your host family who will take care of you during your stay. All lodges provide beautiful views of the area, as you can see from the images on these pages.
• You will enjoy our local food and traditions…
• You will do activities within the family, like making bread in our oven, harvest honey from our bees, fishing, grazing with the animals or finding tea herbs
• You can make short hikes through the fields, to viewpoints within the community and to ruins of the Huari and Recuay period…
• Or long hikes, to lakes and glaciers, with splendid views of the community and all the Huaylas Valley with the Cordillera Blanca at the background.
• You can visit our local craftsman and enjoy their work…
• You learn with us, while we and our kids learn with you...
• You will see how we still live in harmony with our natural environment...

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Food

During your stay you will be eating typical Andean food. And though there are some exceptions, and of course tastes differ for every person, the main reaction from former visitors was that the food was one of the greatest aspects of their visit. It is always very healthy and definitely enough, also for big eaters. The campesinos themselves eat a lot, especially the men. Breakfasts are very heavy but so are the lunches that are already served at 11 o'clock. However visitors (especially foreign visitors) are known to eat a little and therefore they are given less food at first. When you want more though, you are free to ask for more and the people will feel very pleased to give you more.

The base of most meals is formed by potatoes, now a widespread vegetable all over the world, originally from those Andean regions! The variety of potatoes is impressive. They have potatoes in all different colours, shapes and tastes, an example of a native potatoe is the Papa Ocllu on higher altitudes (above 3.800 m.) and an example of a genetically improved potatoe is the Papa Yungay that is cultivated around the village.

Drinks

The most famous cold drink of the campesinos is chicha. It is a drink made from corn, and sometimes contains alcohol, when they leave it fermenting for a while. Normally it is just a sweet drink, and sometimes they add pure alcohol to it that they buy in a local shop. Chicha is normally served in a bucket with one cup. The bucket and the cup pass from one person in the circle to another and this goes on until the bucket is empty and the people in the circle are dashing with liquid in their stomachs.

Hot drinks are more common in Vicos. Fortunately, because the water quality is bad and you have to be sure that everything you drink has been boiled long enough before consumption. In Vicos the most common hot drink is definitely tea. In and around the village you can find all sorts of tea herbs, well known ones like anise or camomile, local herbs like pashpa or other famous herbs like coca leaves. Except for tea they also make their own coffee out of wheat. Furthermore they have several thicker hot drinks, the best of which is still the jugo de quinua, a sweet porridge kind of a drink, which they often bring with them on trekkings to make you feel warm on cold days and give you the energy to go on.

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Medicinal plants

When the campesinos get sick or hurt they always have one or several medicines around which will cure the patient. Plants from which they extract liquids or which have to be eaten, herbs where they make tea from, plant extracts which they make a kind of cream from, which is to be rubbed on somebody's body, as you see they have all kinds of ways to cure people. They even have remedies for small children to prevent them from peeing in bed, or to make the guinea pigs more fertile. On the other hand, several drinks or creams used to cure people contain ingredients like children's urine or other seemingly dirty things. It is very interesting to learn what they make and how they make it. You get the feeling that the campesinos literally use each and every plant in their surrounding for something. There is not one thing in their environment which does not exist for some reason. Everything is part of the big ecosystem and humans are just one bit of it. This realisation changes the visitor to the Cullaquihuayi project forever and makes you appreciate your existence so much more.

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Prices

The prices are per day per person and in American Dollars.

For example, if you are a group of three persons and you wish to stay for four days (three nights), you pay 3 persons * 4 days * $20 = $240.00. Two persons for two days pay 2*2*$22 = $88.00.

These prices include everything (guiding services, lodging, artisan visits, musicians, development funds for the community and the Yachaqui Wayi Responsible Travel center) except taxes and the transport to, from and within the community. You have the option to travel to Vicos by taxi which can contain maximum four persons and will cost approximately ten dollars. There is also an opportunity to travel by colectivo; the local way of public transport and this will cost you one dollar per person.
 
If you travel alone the musicians are not included. When you are only coming to visit one day (and one night) the Pachamanca is not included but instead you will get a regular lunch. If you wish you can ask for Pachamanca but it will cost 15 soles per person.

Development funds

In the price at least 10% development funds for the community is included, a fund which the members use every year to help the community with anything it needs. In the previous years the funds were always given to colleges and schools in the community of Vicos to buy tables and chairs.

Apart from this special fund the project gives direct help to the community by paying two soles per visitor to “La Casa de Abuelos“; a cultural museum administrated by the campesino community.

 
Apart from the direct help to the community there is indirect help for the rest of the community, for example for the artisans, musicians and transport.

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