Handy in the Andes

Adjusting to the high altitude in Peru was the beginning of a rewarding experience where Lee Mylne joined a team of ‘trekkers’ to provide labour and finance to a remote Andean village.

The battered cooking pot that’s passed into my hands is full of small rocks. We’re working chain-gang style, either with pots of rocks or sizeable boulders, passing them along as a bridge takes shape before our eyes.

Wearing disposable blue overalls, rubber gloves and woolly hats to keep out the cold, we're volunteers on a World Expeditions community project in Peru.

Our group of 15 trekkers has undertaken this trip to provide the labour and finance for building a small bridge in the remote Andean village of Qelqanqa, home to about 80 families, and for replacing a reservoir and pipeline to bring fresh water to some of its households. Part of the cost of our 14-day trip – which includes sightseeing in Cusco and a visit to the fabled Machu Picchu – will buy the materials, and we will work alongside the villagers to complete the projects.

It starts with a three-day trek from outside the ancient town of Ollantaytambo in the Sacred Valley of the Incas. As we walk through sweeping valleys and cross mountain passes at up to 4670 metres, we slowly get to know each other. It’s a mixed group, mostly Australians with a few English and Americans. The youngest is Jenny, 15, from Oregon, who is travelling with her mother Joan; the oldest is Evan from Pennsylvania who’s 72.

The first day of trekking, at higher altitudes than my body is used to, is harder than I’d expected but we’re encouraged to take it easy as our bodies adjust.

Days begin at 6am and the pace is comfortably steady. Each morning we’re soon overtaken by the porters and llama carrying our tents, the kitchen tent and its contents and all the other gear.

At our first camp, the tent flap opens to a view of the sun’s last rays on the snowcapped tip of Mount Veronica, also known, says our guide Javier, as ‘the holy teardrop’.

Two days later, we awake to find our tents cloaked in snow. Wet-weather gear is donned, hot porridge and coffee gratefully downed, and we are off again. The snow cover adds another dimension to the trail, and we barely notice the cold. A ghostly herd of wild horses appears through the mist; we pause to shelter at a pass in a tiny stone chapel adorned with simple crosses. It’s a journey that’s full of surprises.

As we approach Qelqanqa, we are greeted by the long blast of a conch shell and a party of local school children bearing flowers and unexpected hugs that bring tears to some eyes.

We have not anticipated this reception; there are speeches and dancing and an escort of villagers as we walk for the last hour to the village. The houses, like others we have passed on the trek, are stone with thatched roofs. Pigs and dogs mill around in the yards and toddlers peek out at the strangers. Everyone wears colourful traditional dress and headgear, but it’s not for our benefit; this is real life, not a tourist brochure.

We split into two teams for the project work. I’m on the stone-and-cement bridge, designed to allow some of the children to reach the school in safety when the river rises. The water is diverted into another channel to allow us to build the rock ramparts, and over the course of the first day, it takes shape as we haul rocks alongside the locals, including an 80-year-old man whose tirelessness soon makes him a favourite with the group.

Our other group is working steadily to build a reservoir about 3km from the village, while the villagers dig trenches for the pipeline. By the time we leave, water has been delivered to the nearest house where a concrete ‘fountain’ with a tap, decorated with streamers for the occasion, is ceremonially turned on.

We celebrate with a feast, a traditional pacha manca, cooked in an earth oven – a whole alpaca, a sheep, and several varieties of potato. The whole village turns out for it.

As we prepare for the walk out of Qelqanqa, I realise that by now we all believe what Javier has told us as we started out: we are ‘trekkers, not tourists’.

And with that, along with our names in the concrete, a little bit of us all will be left behind.

World Expeditions will run 11 not-for-profit Community Project Travel trips in 2008 to destinations including Peru, India, Vietnam, Nepal, Tanzania, Venezuela, Cambodia, China, Tasmania and Arnhemland. Four or five days of an 8-19 day itinerary are spent working on projects, some of which are for local schools. Visit: www.worldexpeditions.com

Antipodeans Abroad arrange educational and volunteer travel to countries including Peru, Ecuador, Ghana, Tanzania, Nepal, Vietnam, India, Borneo and Thailand. Programs are available for schools, organisations, students and adults for 4 to 12 weeks on community projects in the areas of teaching, social work, basic construction and health care.

www.antipodeans.com.au