Kanccora Yacango

For a week we went higher up in the mountains where qañawa is grown. And lived in a Tambo in Kanccora Yancango, with no running water, but this time with a kitchen. A Tambo is an official governmental building for the development of rural areas. They serve as a link between the Peruvian government and the rural farming communities. In these high areas, many locals tend to be quite suspicious of strangers, because they have experienced exploitation of their resources by foreigners without real benefits to the locals. This made it difficult for me, Andrés, to gather some data, but I figured out that most of the qañawa crops there were mainly for self-consumption. And since my thesis is about value chains, the information I could collect here was not very relevant to my thesis project.

A QAÑAWA field at last!! They are similar in characteristics to quinoa, but a much smaller plant.
It has different names: in Peru it's called Cañihua and in Bolivia Cañahua. The Aymara call it Qañawa.

Another Qañawa field, but red. Next to the Qañawa field is a potato field which has been affected by the frost - the tops of the plants are black and dried out, giving a very low harvest for this year. But the Qañawa are much more resilient and have not been affected by the frost. 

On our second day in the mountains we hiked up to some cliffs to see a cave with old drawings on the walls. 

We didn't have a bag to carry food and water for our hike, so Andrés used our 'Awayu' blanket like the Aymara carry things.

Thanks to the help of the old community leader, we found the cave paintings. This woman was in amazingly good shape and could walk up the mountain faster than all of us.

The manager of the Tambo, Miguel, and Andrés talked to and learned from the local farmer communities about agricultural practices.

In front of our Tambo, was a vast plain where herders had their sheep, alpacas and pigs, and where we went to fetch water from a well.

To one of the meetings Andrés held for the authorities of the district, one of the men came by horse, like in an old western movie. It is the first and last horse we have seen in Peru. Donkeys, bikes, motorbikes or walking are much more common means of transportation.

In the top right our Tambo with red roof can be seen.