Rambling

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The people of these mountains are sad. They are generally introverted and shy. They seem truly a conquered race, who have lived in poverty since Europeans arrived over four hundered years ago. How much livelihood have they lost since they once governed themselves and the country they inhabited?

Tonight, Doris described me the issues Ollantinos face with agricultural diversification. There are no local markets to support diversified farming nor is their education to inform farmers of how this may be done. The only vegetable of any worth growing in Ollanta is corn. The overproduction of corn leads to oversaturation in the local markets. Saturation lowers the price of corn and saps the income of local farmers (who seem to occupy the majority of the non-tourist industry). Other vegetables are imported from distant places, like Arequipa, when they can all be grown in the Sacred Valley. If other vegetables were grown and sold here, farming would be a more secure profession and consumers wouldn't pay for imported food products.

Implimenting true sustainable tourism in Ollanta would entail making Ollanta self-sufficient. This would mean directing tourist money away from toursim and distributing it into projects that actually make the town sustainable. This makes sustainable toursim seem like a contradiction, but in order to sustain toursim we must first sustain the places that actually make tourism desirable.

Awamaki's sustainable tourism branch should invest the revenues of their projects into a wide range of local bodies, organizations, and small businesses, not just weaving. If the objective is to preserve an ancient culture without exploiting the traditions and values of a people, the people must have the capacity to choose what their culture is. Culture is an expression, not an entity that can be simply extracted.

Tourism is the third largest source of revenue in the world. If this industry is going to sustain itself, the nature and communities from which it is derived must be preserved without maintenance. In the case of of nature this would mean low impact. In the case of of communities, this would mean socio-economic self relicance and total independence.

The Western way of life is not the inevitable progression of independent peoples. Ollanta will not lose its cultural identity and become Westernized. Not if they're given the freedom to choose their future and are educated about their past. If the pride of the Peruvian people is to be restored, they must remember the accomplishments and honor of their ancestors when a moment of self-reliance arrives. Sustainable tourism demands sustainable destinations. Implimenting these ideas on any scale would require large amounts of time and effort, but I feel I'm in a position to give both.

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