Teams of uniformed porters are now a familiar sight on the Inca Trail
Click on any trek operator’s website or leaf through the pages of any travel company’s brochure and responsible travel will leap out at you. Well they would like it to but it has suffered something of the same fate as car alarms. Once you hear the same noise so many times you no longer hear it. Some companies clearly do practice responsible tourism but for other trekking agencies it appears to be no more than a marketing tool. When every agency makes the same claim, which do we choose, which do we believe?
“We give our porters uniform, we practice responsible tourism. “
Do you? Do you really care or is it all about marketing. Tens of men clad in your brand, advertising your product to the world. Is a school child treated any better in a school with a uniform than one that has none? Is the street sweeper treated better than the council official who is allowed to choose his own clothes? The sergeant major screaming at recruits, telling them they are horrid little men, are they not wearing uniform? A uniform proves nothing.
Responsible tourism is a broad spectrum and often a contradictory one. Flying several thousand miles to trek on the other side of the world that is bad; you damage the ozone. But I provide work for porters and guides is that not good? Buying bottles of water from the ladies along the Inca Trail that is bad, you should be refilling your water bottles and cutting down on plastics. But I am providing these Andean people with income, am I not good?
Bringing school books and coloured pencils to share as we trek through the valleys of Lares, surely that is good, we help their education? Or are we bad, are we teaching them to beg, to expect things for free in a world that is not free? The children selling postcards in Cusco, are they needy, are we being good by buying from them, are we allowing them to eat. Or are we bad, are we allowing their parents to sit at home and drink while the children bring in more money than they possibly could?
For a long time in Cusco the focus on responsible trekking has been on the porters. They work hard it is true, they work very hard but theirs is unskilled labour for which they are paid 64U$ for 4 days work. If we add on 10U$ of tips they have a measly 74U$ per trip. Wow we say, they work so hard and earn so little. However this is Peru, not Europe, not the U.S.A.
A porter trekking four Inca Trails in a month earns close to 300 U$ for sixteen day’s work. Minimum wage in Peru currently stands at 183 U$ and for many in Cusco the minimum wage is all you get for working ten hours a day, six days a week, twenty six days a month. Teachers, nurses and many more, all professionals, earn minimum wage having to slowly work their way up the scale. So is it responsible trekking that an unskilled, uneducated albeit hard working Andean porter can earn more than someone who has been to university for 4 or 5 years to learn their profession? Some porters have a skilled trade, some of them did get a secondary education, I am not trying to belittle the work these constantly cheerful men do but skills, education or experience are not a pre-requisite for the job.
So how did porters come to earn so well, so unequally? Through responsible tourism of course, projects were set up, NGOs the Peruvian equivalent of a charity organisation were founded to help the porters, the porters threatened strikes and eventually they won, they received their pay rise. But is it right that they earn more than a teacher? Are we practicing responsible trekking when we send out the message that you can earn more carrying someone’s bag than studying and gaining a profession?
NGO’s are for many a licence to print money; yet we are told to support them, they benefit the communities, they help the children, they make us feel better about ourselves. There are undoubtedly many good ones here in Cusco but there are many which exist solely to make money for the founder. When I used to trek the Inca Trail regularly, I worked with a porter who became chairman of the Porter’s Association. I asked him what he thought of the latest porter project supposedly set up to help “Liars” he told me “They do not help us; they have spent all the money donated on new computers for their office”.
Of course some agencies do not pay their porters what they are obliged to by law, some trekkers do not tip and sometimes he in charge of recruiting porters demands his cut of their tips or they do not work again. And the guides, what about the guides, are they treated fairly? Well they can earn a good wage, they can gain good tips, and they can earn a good living. But not all trek companies pay well, not all trek companies give the guide a constant supply of work. Many mistreat the guides not letting them know when they will be working next but expect them to drop everything when they call; they fine them for being late for a trek briefing, fine them because they had a drink with passengers, fine them because they do not like how they answered a question.
Let me add some context; in Peru we favour the stick over the carrot, we do not encourage, we punish. Miss a school parent’s meeting- a fine; turn up late to work- a fine; make a mistake at work – you pay for it. This is not the western way, it wrangles, grates on us, how can employers treat people so badly we ask? I agree, but would the carrot work in a country where good timekeeping does not exist where telling the truth is not important. Values that we hold dear in the west do not carry value here, you do not hold it against someone that they lied to you, of course they did; you do not stand frustrated and cold waiting for someone who is late. You too have not arrived, you too are late.
Progress that is what we want, as responsible trekkers we bring money; we allow people and Andean communities to progress. ”Patacancha” that is what I say to that, one of the most traditional communities in the Andes, famed for their weaving skills we brought them progress, we ruined them. The once pretty village has its road, its internet, its concrete houses and it is ugly. Trekkers once used this as a favoured camp ground; now we avoid it, take other routes that have not been blessed with progress.
Chaullacocha, high in the hills of Lares a place visited by no-one, the jewel of the trek; hiking along one day we turned a corner and we cried, a yellow digger tearing up this untouched valley, bringing a road, bringing progress. Huacahuasi, once the most feared community in Lares, a wild place peopled by thieves who would raid stock from nearby villages, it has been tamed by progress. From high above you look down on the school a modern building funded by an NGO, out of place in this landscape, you look down on the glint of corrugated iron roofs, easier to maintain than the traditional thatch that so fitted these hills.
Who are we to deny progress? Our ancestors in the west once lived in mud huts, once walked to school, and once farmed the land, would we want that for ourselves today? But care is needed to prevent destroying the beauty we come to see, will we come to these hills to trek when they are covered by roads will we come and provide jobs for the porters, the cooks, the guides? Or will we turn our backs and look for new pastures, new treks to destroy with our responsible tourism.
So stay at home, do not trek the Andes; that is not the answer. Come and visit this beautiful place, come and trek these magnificent hills and come and meet its people. But choose wisely, come with your eyes open, listen with your ears and decide for yourself. There are many good operators out there who value their staff who cherish the environment and deliver their promises. But as you click the webpage or turn the pages of the brochure proudly printed on recycled paper don’t believe the hype
Footnote:please do not draw any conclusions from the photo
