Cuzco is a backpackers hub, with nice restaurants, markets with fresh fruits, clear mountain air and laid back general atmosphere. There´s spa´s to relax after adventures and good food if you know where to go.

Gap has a Planeterra, fair tourism project here, so you can visit the house of the rising sun - a place for kids and teenager living in extreme poverty, here they get help with school work, life skills and social problems. Foreigners can apply here to work as volunteers, and as the place had a really great atmosphere, with nice staff and surprisingly happy kids, I assume it might a great way to learn spanish while making a difference too.

More about planeterra: www.planeterra.org

Sacred Valley climbing

There´s a unique oportunity to get a feeling of real rock climbing in near by Cuzco, Sacred Valley. Natura Vive, responsible adventure organizer has done great job in creatig hear a climbing route, so easy even beginners can make it and there´s a zip gliding, Via Ferrata route, natural way to tarverse anyway for climbers, but yes, it´s really cool. The Via Ferrata gliding route has about 5 lines, really long ones, where you glide and yell under some hundreds of meters of nothingness….exciting! Also the climbing was a nice experience, after doing a lot smaller routes in Finland, this was exciting and scary, because the route went to 300 meters up, so much air, so beuatiful river valley, and space!
Natura vive is a good and reliable company, recommend this and the whole day climbing here for anyone wanting to know why some people are so addicted to hights and mountains.

On our way to Machu Picchu - Ollantaytambo

Peru´s Ollantaytambo was a small still living inca town with beautiful ancient ruins by the mountain right next to the town. Nice views and a preview to Machu Picchu..
Before arriving here we visited the Gap Adventure´s Planeterra project, in Sacred Valley, the Ccaccaccollo womens´s weaving project. It was establsihed to help to support the local women to preserve their cultural heritage of hand crafts. It was a really interesting visit as we saw how they produce the wool and produce the beautiful socs, leg warmers etc. It was nice to buy some warming stuff straight from the producers who were eagerly explaining about the products in Spanish. Aal the money goes to developing the community, so it was money well spent!

Lue lisää vastuullisesta matkailusta www.reilumatkailu.fi