Yanque village & surrounds

Yanque is a laid-back, authentic village of about 2000 people, mainly agricultural workers. Tourism contributes to the economy too. Every morning buses en route to the condor lookout stop here for half an hour to watch school kids perform traditional dances in traditional dress, hopefully making donations and spending a few dollars with local artisans. For the kids it's win-win; they keep up traditions and gain money for excursions, meaning they can go to places like Machu Picchu instead of the local hot springs 😀. Apparently this has been going on for about 25 years and it's wonderful that tourism here is still very low-key, such that outside the 7-7.30am display, it's hard to imagine anything happening in the plaza except the sale of local crops.

After our first 2 nights here with Molly, Mark and I decided to stay an extra few days here instead of trek down into Colca Canyon (further hurting our knees) with a bunch of other tourists. In addition to the walking we'd already done with Molly, we also hiked to the neighbouring village, Coporaque, with amazing views over the valley, and we even saw 3 condors flying high above the hills. And went on a fab trip to the source of the Amazon - see other post.

It was so enjoyable staying at Casa Bella Flor with Señora Hilde. Other visitors there (single nights only) included a group of Argentinians on motorbikes, a British couple, and a big Peruvian family from Arequipa celebrating their dad's birthday. All lovely! Other than them, it felt like we were the only foreigners in town. We mostly had the plaza restaurant to ourselves - really good food! We hardly saw anyone on our walks through the countryside.

It was fascinating to hear about village life and local governance from Hilde. The day we left she was complaining about a boring community meeting she had to attend for half the day, but agreed she had to be there to be involved in the decision making. She was desperately hoping not to be appointed in a position of power (these are rotated around the community), as she is already busy enough with the homestay and her agricultural fields.

Water management is a really really big deal in these parts and all over Peru. Most communities, like Yanque, are dependent on irrigation fed by rivers and channels descending from neighbouring mountains due to higher altitude rain and snow. The resource has to be carefully managed to fairly distribute water for all. Hilde and Roly explained that the director of irrigation is appointed for a period of 12 months from among the biggest landholders. It must be someone who is wealthy enough to employ other staff to manage their lands, to organise all the water distribution tasks including the annual working bee for maintenance of the canals, and to pay for the accompanying celebrations.

We got the impression that everything was governed with the community in mind (rather than individuals), and that those with decision-making power also had many obligations, and the responsibility was shared around. Rachel later confirmed that this is common practice in Peru, but in some places there is corruption, and large companies can take advantage of locals. We also heard about mining operations run by Chinese companies that give nothing back to the community at all; only take.

None of this negativity seemed apparent in Yanque. But change is slowly happening as young people get educated, move to the city, and people from elsewhere come and buy land, shifting prices and probably values. For now though, it remains a wonderfully peaceful place to visit, and we are really grateful for our lovely experiences there 🙏🏼.Lue lisää