Peru! 🇵🇪 (Like You’ve Never Seen Before) | South America Vlog 1

It's our first time in South America so we're going big. The best red wine I've ever had. We're spending the next month exploring four different countries, embracing the food, learning from the people, making friends, meeting the locals and doing lots of bicep curls. We've also got some unbelievable bucket list life-changing experiences lined up. Oh my god. Yes. What are we doing? Hello. Whoa, that goes straight through you. I felt it here. It's dusty. It is really. Is it? But it can't all go to plan. And you'll see I'm a bit absent today, but more on that later. We're kicking things off in Peru with G Adventures and a group of absolute legends. Sexy llama. Beautiful. Off the back of the GX Community Tourism Summer and today is about the intersection where extreme poverty and tourism meet. This is a completely different side to Peru. Something other than Machu Picchu. Today is a feel-good story about lives being changed through travel, which makes my heart so happy. Welcome to South America. I almost can't believe that I'm saying that. It's after so long of wanting to just... We haven't even touched the continent to be here now. It still feels like a little bit of a blur if I'm honest, but today is going to be so sick. We're exploring Peru for the first time. We'll explain a little bit more about what the last couple of days have been like, but we always talk about getting out into local communities and sort of like meeting the locals, seeing the people, seeing the real life and today that's what it's all going to be about. We're going to go to Machu Picchu. We're going to do the touristy stuff, but today we're doing more of the like community tourism stuff where we get to actually go and meet these local communities that are genuinely benefiting from travelers and from G Adventures and the amazing things that Planeterra is doing. So it's a great start. We've come to Cristo Blanco and this is the viewpoint here out across Cusco. So we're about 30 minutes outside of central Cusco. We've just arrived in an area called Kaka Koyo. You can see how developed it is down here versus how much it was on the way in. This place is all about weaving. So this community's weaving tradition is just basically disappearing because even though they're kind of close to Machu Picchu, there was no way to monetize it. So in 2005, they were down to only three women that were essentially doing this weaving and they couldn't find any way to make income from it. It wasn't worth younger generations sort of getting involved. Now there's 46 women. You can see the development that's going on and all the tours that come here fund essentially this community growing, developing and now all of these women that have children, they're off to university, they're studying, they're doing big things in the world. So it's nice. It's rewarding. And this is the kind of welcome you get? That's cool. It was really cool. This community, guys, is part of the project of Planeterra. So Planeterra is a partnership of G Adventure. So what Planeterra does, guys, is basically to improve the style life of people in all over the world. Actually, it's to create jobs for people who don't have that opportunity to work in tourism, but their communities are on the way of touristic places. Are you guys friendly or no? Are we friendly? Seems pretty civil. Uh oh, the boss is coming over. This is one of around a hundred community projects doing heartwarming things and it's just the start because G and Planeterra just announced Project 300 with the goal to have 300 community co-ops like this set up by 2030. While that's amazing news, it wasn't good news for our New Zealand fan when it comes to the quality of wool used for weaving. The first one, guys, it is coming from a sheep wool. So sheep is like very, very bad type of... Oh, not good. Sheep are not good. No bueno. Oh, don't tell us that. It's all we have. The second one, guys, it is coming from llama. Oh, of course. Sheep, llama. The last wool, it is coming from vicuña. Oh, that's right. Vicuña, guys, it is the same South American camel. It's family of llamas and alpacas. The process for prepping the wool is so amazing. It's cleaned with a plant root which magically removes all the grease and grime. And you can see, guys, how the water start getting... Then it's all about the colour and the ladies of Peru love colour. The crazy thing is it's all natural goodness and coloured using everything from lemons, cactus, corn and herbs. Whoa, that's insane. That's so quick. Yeah. And then it's gonna turn to that colour. Not gonna lie, the weaving itself looks hard and anyone from our group that tried failed instantly. So we just sat back like this little one instead. For something so intricate, it was surprising to see they used bones to split the wool. Maybe that's what got Dane so hungry for a Peruvian delicacy. Yep, guinea pig. Quite lean, very lean actually, eh? Lean meat. Skin's got that kind of texture that you might get from a pig. What do they call it in Indonesia where they do the... Babi guling. Babi guling, yeah. But the guinea pig itself is... It's lean, it's a little bit gamey but not fatty. Would you eat again? Yeah. I mean, I'd eat anything. Eating guinea pig. Time to feed the llamas and the alpacas. Let's hope they don't spit on us. I was just gonna say the same thing. They're so cute. There's that little baby guy in the back there. Is he getting fed even, I hope? Yeah, he's my favourite one. They haven't spat yet either. So another way that they make money here is they actually sell the products that they create and they've got their own little market. So we're just gonna take a look around now. I can already see there's so many cute pom-poms. I wish we had more room in our luggage. That's always our story though, eh? Always, every time. That's awesome. With the alpacas on there, that's so cool. Oh, there's loads. They've all got them on them. Oh my gosh, look at that one. I wanna get one. That is sick. Check that. It's very cool. You making friends as well? What an experience. I absolutely love this kind of stuff. The scale of this place is absolutely unreal. I feel like an ant. Tiny, tiny ant. And there's actually snow. We kind of have the best angle now. There is a little bit of snow up there but then it is still so hot. It's unreal. Why is it snow? Why is it hot? I thought it was gonna be freezing. For this trip, because we're going everywhere from like minus three, minus four, maybe even lower on the salt flats to some of these places like La Paz, which is somewhere else that we're going to. That's gonna be like 35. So packing for this trip has been a nightmare. Oh wow, I actually didn't look down that way. Check this out. Oh, you don't wanna be afraid of heights. Guys, come on. This place is just... It's magical. So we're in like a bit of a valley at the moment. It's this place. I've instantly forgotten the name. Of course I have. Wait, hold on a minute. Let me find it for you. Pisac. That's the name of where we are. This is a pretty common thing with the llamas and stuff. The locals trying to get you to take a photo. There's some baby ones there. They're very cute. I want to take photos. I want to film them for you. But that'll cost me. So we're here. Look at this. It's unbelievable. It's almost, dare I say, it got a bit of a strange kind of like European feel. But this is our spot for lunch. In we go. Oh wow, it's so earthy. It's lovely, yeah. Wow. Muchas gracias. This is Parque de la Papa. Basically that translates to Potato Park. Initially hearing that, like us, you might think there's going to be potato chips everywhere. There's going to be crisps. There's going to be like a potato buffet. It's not what it's about. It's not potato world. Not potato buffet. No, they're all about preserving. Preserve a species of potatoes. That's what they do, guys. There's thousands, thousands. It's crazy, like all of these communities up here all work together. They've all got different jobs and they all pitch in. And I think they said there's something like 9,000 hectares or something of land. It's massive. You're right up to 4,000 meters in terms of altitude. There's like 7,000 people involved in the wider community of this entire project. These people are still preserving the same techniques and some tools This whole process for them is almost spiritual. We've just been speaking here with one of the heads of this community. In the middle of the room there, it's almost like their calendar. There's different points that they use as their indicators of when they need to do something based on a season. So for example, when the cactus starts flowering or when the fox cries three times, they know it's time to start prepping. It's really nice and they're all so welcoming as you've seen that like everywhere we go. They know the entrance. Did you film that? Yes, yeah. That's so sweet. So this is essentially a potato sauer. So like the pisco sauer, which is the classic iconic Peruvian liquor. Oh, that's beautiful. It's nowhere near as sour. It's nowhere near as kind of alcoholic. It tastes like a like a sweet juice. Yeah, it's not looking too good. There's a lot of thunder lightning out there. We've got some new conditions to contend with now. So we're gonna eat some jackets out. Give you a look at what a, like a classic, I suppose you'd call this a village. This is what it looks like. Look at, look at how creative that is. Well, they put just the mat, they put a straw, they make it flat. Yeah. And they take the module and just wait. Right, and then is that how they've managed to get the design as well? Oh, the designs outside, they do it later. They do it like, they carve. Yeah, all right. A little bit and then they make the symbols now. Yeah. For the sun, the moon. There's llamas, you get dogs walking around. Surprisingly, there's a version of a tuk-tuk. Didn't really expect to see that here, but. Thunder. We're hiking tomorrow, so let's hope it does not stay like this because hiking in this is not going to be fun. This is our third and final stop for the day. There's two things going on here. One, pottery, which I love a bit of pottery. Two, empanadas, also love empanadas. Sorry, I'm puffing. We had to walk up a different way because it's just started raining. And the altitude's getting you a bit, eh? The altitude's really getting me. I'm just feeling headachy, a bit nauseous. Can't think, can't think too straight, too good. Not quite yourself today. Not quite myself. It's amazing though. Sorry, you've seen me a bit more than you probably would have liked to, but obviously we're trying to share this with you. And if Stacey's in a hundo. Dana's to take him over. I gotta step up. You'll be doing a great job. Oh, I'm so tired. That's what it's called there. Coyo Chico. This is the, this is the Peruvian fairy lights. Amazing. Oh, wow. So cool. We will come back here and they'll have to explain us everything. The painting is really, it's really special on there too. It's amazing, isn't it? So are we saying the bull is a good luck thing? Yes, it's a good luck. Good luck to them. So G-Adventure guys from the JR's 2016, start working with this community to bring travelers into this community and rescue the culture of this community. On 2019, it's where Planeterra sponsored this community and Planeterra made the whole construction of this space that you see here in the house. Renato is his name. He's going to teach us a little bit how they make empanadas in this place, okay? So you are going to do your own and later we are going to be making them. With a fork, you seal your moon. You have moon like that. All right, now for the fun part. Although Stacey has just been painting the bull. Terrible design. I'm sorry if you have to see that. Doughy. We've learned about the pottery. We've baked our own goods. In fact, we didn't really do much of that. We actually did the easier part. We actually rolled it out and filled them up but they were so good. Absolutely delicious. I feel like when we ate the first bit on camera, we really weren't at the heart of it, literally. We missed the good bit. Missed the filling. But it's just been an insane day. What a crazy day of experiences. I can't even really remember the morning. Like there's just been so much that's happened. So we've spent maybe like an hour or two at each of these places. Tried to do the best to sort of, I don't know, show you the fun times and the interesting stuff. But the whole thing has been... What was your highlight? Arriving this morning and the dancing and the clapping and the performance. It was just... And the hugs, it was beautiful. That was special. Yeah. My favorite was dancing back down to the bands when we had our little friend each. That was cute. All right, tomorrow. Tomorrow we're hiking. We're going 4,100 meters up, I think. Yeah. So I think we're going to be doing very slow hiking with the altitude and we're going to be sleeping out in tents. So hopefully it's not too cold, too rainy. But it'll be an adventure. We've been warned about the toilets already, or lack thereof. The toilets, yeah. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. So we're probably going to put that in two days worth into one video. So because it's going to be intense. Intense. Oh my god. See ya. Get out of here. It turns out altitude sickness is a real thing. And unfortunately, it really gets hold of Stace next time. But like always, she's an absolute trooper. So we'll catch you in the next one when we're going hiking in Peru.