The Green Miles

We went down into the Colca Canyon to learn about sustainable life.

Arguably the deepest canyon in the world (at 3180 metres from rim to base - competing only with neighbouring Cotahuasi canyon in a number of recent surveys), the Colca Canyon is an arrid compression of slippery sandstone and spikey volcanic shale, where villages balance on sheer precipices, appearing ready to slide off into the stoney, turquoise river, below at any moment.  It is a place where terraces spread out across every metre of available semi-horizontal space, climbing up high into the Andean hillsides.  It is where narrow pathways wind across sheer cliffs, where people walk and climb the switchbacks for hours to get to school, to buy groceries, and visit the doctor.

The Colca Canyon is a magical, fantastic combination of inhospitable land and resourceful people, and there is much to learn about sustainable life from those who live there.

A six-hour trek down from the one-road, tourist town of Cabonaconde lie the remote villages of San Juan de Chuccho, Cosñirhua, and Tapay.   Here, the rocks of the canyon give way to thick green patches of grass, blooming gardens and a bounty of ripened fruit trees.  Thanks to centuries of ingenious irrigation, narrow streams divert into the hillsides of these villages, giving the townspeople fresh-water enough for farming fruits and vegetables.  Unlike the villages set at the top of the canyon, who use similar systems to farm maize, wheat and rye on their wide terraces, the villages inside the canyon don't have the space or animals needed for ploughing, and so have lived for hundreds of years on an exchange policy:  they provide the high villages (like Cabanaconde) with fruit and vegetables, and trade them for the grains and pulses they can't grow themselves.

For these remote villages, life has gone on as such for centuries.  Many of the terraces in the area are dated pre-Inca, and, in fact, the Colca Canyon was a well-known stop on the Inca Trail to the sacred Mount Ampato, where the Incas made human sacrifices to garner luck with the gods. 

In Cosñirhua, where we spent an evening with a family, the few technological improvements they have embraced include metal roofs (as opposed to ones comprised of grass, wood and alpaca leather), electricity (installed only one year ago), and hot water (created through solar-heated black & metal tanks perched on rooftops).  Here, the people know hard work.  They spend their days harvesting fruit, vegetables, or picking the cochineal cactus parasite, which they sun-dry to make an infamous crimson dye.  They make the steep, two-hour journey to the top of the canyon to sell, trade, or just visit friends or family, helped sometimes by mules, but always with their  thick wool mantas tied to their backs.  Despite the altitude and the work, though, many villagers live into their hundreds.  Our guide, a Cabanaconde native, boasted of his 105-year-old grandfather, who was still hard at work as a village shaman.

It seems the mountain spirits are still highly involved with life in the canyon, as villagers regularly tie flowers to small shrines and climb high to leave offerings for luck and to ward off earthquakes, landslides and drought.  While tourists consider it a cute, quaint practice, it actually exemplifies the strong belief the Colca people have in their land and lifestyle.  While many tourists come to walk the various treks, the incredible landscape means that paved roads, and even cars themselves, are a rather useless commodity, and therefore much of the development that has compromised the Inca Trail and Machu Pichu has yet to affect the Colca.  So the people, despite electricity and a pair of trainers, are still really living mostly the same way their ancestors did.

What impresses me most with the people of the Colca Canyon, is just the sheer, beautiful simplicity of it all.  They farm only enough to live on and to trade with the high villages, they have mules and alpacas or llamas to help carry and eat (respectively), and they use their own feet and hands for most of their work.  They enjoy well-rooted traditions (not to mention gorgeous costumes), and deeply respect the canyon and its landscape.  Their lives aren't confused with questions about their carbon footprint or whether or not to buy a hybrid; they just live so closely to the environment that they know how very precious its resources are. 

Sure, its by no means perfect - the children walk hours for school, with only fifty percent of the village children carrying on into secondary school, and, of course, many villagers struggle with health and poverty issues - but it remains an everlasting testament to sustainability.  The well-groomed terraces and narrow mountain paths speak out across centuries, and for me, its a strong, but simple message:  respect for the landscape, and modesty in the use of its riches.

It was interesting when, on the first day we arrived in the world's driest desert, it rained.

As we wandered around a dusty San Pedro de Atacama, I glanced above to see thick puffs of dark cloud spreading over the seemingly endless horizon.  I summoned all my karmic energies and imagined the skies bursting open and streams of that heavenly nectar spreading out over the sand, as deep green shoots of grass popped up before my very eyes.  It would have been the very biblical climax of my green-focused time, here in South America. 

"Oh ye fertile ground, spring forth!" I would yell, and then I would wave my hands not unlike a character in Harry Potter.  Magic.  Green bliss.

Yet, it seems my chronic over-tipping hasn't reached those levels of karmic bliss, because as our guide warned of us a storm, the only thing to pelt me as we climbed into the crest overlooking Death Valley were a few stray rocks and one or two raindrops which might or might not have been from my foamy altitude-related gasps.   Surprisingly, the hoards didn't crowd out onto the streets and gape, like they do when it snows in London.

No, the clouds only spit out a few raindrops, here or there, on the many miles of dry, barren land, and it made me wonder how a place like this - where, in fact, some of the weather stations have never recorded rain - can support life.  Tourists from all around the world flock there to walk on the salt plains, over-photograph the flamingos, and linger before the gurgling geysers, not to mention all those from Chile and elsewhere that have moved to the desert to start tourism-related businesses, and yet all that sand doesn't make a case for supporting such a large community.  Signs are posted everywhere admonishing the use of water for cleaning cars and sidewalks, and begging visitors to keep their showers short.

The Atacama, however, is perhaps far more attune to one of the most increasing environmental problems, and arguably the most serious:  the water crisis.

According to UK charity Water Aid, around 2.6 billion people on this live without fresh water sanitation, with an estimated 5,000 children dying each day from unclean-water related diarrhea; the World Bank says that 88% of diseases are caused by dirty drinking water. Not having clean water is one of the main root causes of poverty, disease, and even political conflict, and as drought and overpopulation on the increase, fresh water is becoming a prized resource.

Green Miles guest-blogger (and husband) Jon recently read an article about an eccentric investor from Texas named T. Boone Pickens.  Pickens is known for throwing down money on hot new investments, and one of his most recent acquisitions has environmentalists stomping their feet.  Pickens bought-up 2,000 acres of land in rural Texas, under which is the Ogallala Aquifer, a well-known under-water lake which spreads across central America and holds, according to the US Geological Survey, about 2,925 million acre feet of water (down 253 million acre feet since they started pumping it in the 50s).  Ogallala is one of the US's most important sources of fresh water, and Picken's plans to pump the water from his property to various drought-ridden, overpopulated Texas cities, while appeasing the green-squad by also making the land into a wind farm.  But here is where it gets interesting:  accessing the Aquifer is allowed only by public vote, and so those residents within the related district were called to cast their ballots.  Strangely, there were only two residents in the area, and therefore only to who approved the decision to start privately pumping the aquifer.  Who were they? Picken's ranch manager, and his wife.

Some experts are predicting things like Pickens is doing:  a world where water has become the new oil; where it is mined and bought and sold and rationed and paid handsomely for; where it causes wars and directs politics. In many countries already, from Australia to Singapore, water is already being desalinised and treated and resold to consumers more expensively.

It all sounds very 1984, but after witnessing a place like San Pedro spring up around grass and fruit trees that fed from the same tiny thermal stream; after meeting a traveler who had been sick for months with Giardiasis, who was gaunt with being unable to eat, all from (what he thought) was a poor town in Bolivia; and after watching the trucks rumble through Atacama with cases of bottled water, sold to tourists (of course) at a premium, its hard not to see these horrible predictions ringing true.

If only I could cast my magic Harry Potter karma towards America's aquifers and Chile's thermal streams, and send the water bubbling up from under ground.  Magic.  Green bliss.

Until then, and to help keep people like Pickens at bay, we've poled some fellow travelers, and here are a combined list of ways to save water.  We won't reveal who has stopped showering, and we will warn you that some are, um, more practical, than others:

- Don't shower.  Because that's what deo is for.
- Stop shaving.  It saves lots of water, and having lots of hair is cool.  Plus, if you're a woman, you never get that prickly leg thing.
- On & Off Showering.  It goes like this:  On for rinsing.  Off for soaping. On for rinsing. Off for shampoo.  On for rinsing.  Etc. Etc.
- Eat more fruit & veg.  They say you should drink 8-10 glasses of water a day, but if you're eating enough fruit & veg, you don't need that much.
- Don't fill the kettle.  Fill up only what you need.  I think you remember TV adverts somewhere along those lines?
- Forget the garden.  Or better yet, plant drought-hearty plants like aloe vera, various succulents, palms.  Or hearty fruit trees, like quince and pomegranate.
- And also forget the car.  Or if you are really fussed, then keep a small bucket that catches rain water (but empty often, to prevent mosquitos!)

This article about 'Green Noise' in the New York Times really pressed my buttons.

The issue of too much conflicting green information - much like there is too much conflicting health information - is one growing slowly into a maddening, dizzying, phenomenally over-advertised media spectacle: Recycle.  Don't recycle because it never actually gets recycled.  Reuse plastic bags.  No, just don't use them.  Use your own bags, instead, but make sure they aren't made of plastic but fair-trade, organically grown cotton with biodegradable paint that can be composted once broken.

Yes, the piles of steaming hypocrisy and misinformation are high and wide in our new greener world, and its easy to drown in the debate - not more so in the issue of travel and environmentalism.

Should you fly, or drive, or take the train? Should you stay in one place?  Should you stay at a locally run hostel, or an international one that recycles and uses long-life light bulbs?  Should you use a diesel-guzzling city bus, or a hybrid taxi?  Should you cook your own food and chuck away your leftovers, or eat at restaurants?  Should you shop at environmentally questionable local venues, or hit up more respectable chains?

In the bigger picture: can you be environmentally minded and travel? And how, exactly, do you travel in an environmentally-friendly way? 

These are all questions I, through experience, am trying to find answers to, but the answers themselves conflict on multiple levels and, most interestingly, I've found, vary person to person.

The very idea of this blog, itself, to some people, is a bit of a oxymoron (how can you travel AND be green?), and the responses to it have run the emotional gamut. One or two readers have suggested that, instead of traveling abroad, I should have taken a nice walking holiday in the UK.  But should I have driven there, or taken the train?  And should I have camped and saved electricity (but been harsher to the natural environment thanks to my waste and fire remains), or should I have stopped off at a quaint local b&b whose cute old building has an atrociously high heating bill?  In any case, I am forced to make a decision that will send opinions multiple ways, and the same is true for my fellow travelers.

Most of the backpackers I have met seem to care, at some level, about their environmental impact, and in many cases naturally opt for the greener way - that is, as most of the time the greener way tends to be the cheaper way:  packing lightly, going via bus, staying at local hostels, and sightseeing by foot.  Still, many turn a blind eye to their more damning actions, including the copious amounts of waste they produce, and the cut-throat, as-cheap-as-they-can-get-it attitude they have towards local businesses and tour companies. 

In some senses, though, and as a person making those exact same day-to-day decisions, I can wholly empathise.  To spend your days evaluating, and re-evaluating your green travel-related decisions (or, if you're at home, your day-to-day green decisions) is mentally taxing and, lets be honest, totally ridiculous.  You don't have the time to sit down and research which hostel is going to be the greenest, and is locally run; you shouldn't have to continually worry, from city to city, whether your produce was organic and fair-trade; and you might as well stay in England and take a nice walking holiday if you are going to try to figure out which bus company has the cleanest environmental record.  In foreign countries who care less about the environment that Europe and the rest of the "first world", finding out that kind of information - and following through with the most environmentally sound option, is sometimes simply impossible.

As someone who's job it is to try to figure out this whole 'green travel' conundrum, however, I have given up the daily struggle and set myself some easy ground rules, which help both alleviate the worry of traveling green, and some of the the stress of traveling, in general.  We can't always stick to these, as sometimes its just not technically possible, but generally they steer us towards a greener, and healthier way of traveling.

They aren't rocket science, and they certainly aren't new or unique, but I hope these help drown out the green noise in your life, as well.  Let me know what you think - and if you have any other travel ground rules you stick by!

Megan's General Ground Rules for Green Travel:

- When you can, plan ahead.  This solves the problem of being tired and hungry and pouncing on the first option you come across, and regretting it later.
- But be okay with altering plans.  Sometimes the best options just aren't in the Lonely Planet.
- Resolve to walk, always.  When you can walk anywhere, do it, no excuses.  Next best option?  Rent a bike.
- Don't buy it.  Everything you buy needs carrying, and that sucks.  So just don't.
- If you do buy it, then buy local.  Seek out crafts that are made by the seller, and local market stalls and restaurants for food.
- Take your time.  Rushing through countries and continents is gas-guzzling, expensive, and, in my opinion, a big waste of a good holiday.  Get to know one or two places really well, rather than seeing the bus station and main tourist attractions of many.
- Donate to grassroots projects you have seen and believe in.  It feels much better, and more fulfilling, than throwing money at carbon-offsetting companies.
- Ask.  Because more than pretty sunsets, its about meeting people and experiencing cultures, and you don't find that in the Shoestring.  Your best bet is always to cobble together your best of their native tongue, be brave, and ask locals.  They will know far more than any guidebook (or green blog!) will ever tell you - and you will more than likely appreciate the interaction.

Perhaps its the sheer amount of free time on our hands these days, or the reliable glint of the South American sun, but we have certainly been embracing and experiencing the joy of public parks.

Whatever the reason, our first stop in a town or city usually involves a wander towards the biggest blob of green on the map. With books in hands, a bag of snacks and maybe a deck of cards, an afternoon in the park tends to give us the best flavour of a city.

Parks, themselves, are a great indicator of a city's commitment to environmental causes:  the cleaner, more maintained and preserved the parkland, the more likely the city has invested in other environmental capacities, too.  For example, places like Curitiba, Brazil benefit from clever urban planning that favours pedestrians amongst huge swatches of parkland - creating 28 named parks and, in total, about 200 million square metres of undeveloped land (PBS does a fantastic review of Curitiba, here).   Their amazing public bus system, with its space-like terminals and phenomenal frequency, compliments the pedestrianized areas and parks, as well.  We spent an entire two days wandering around on the bus system, hopping on and off at parks, in search of the infamous, alleged sheep that are reported to mow park lawns instead of their noisier, electric counterparts.  In that sense, we failed horribly, but in terms of park exploration, we were seriously up for gold.

In England, and more significantly in the states, though, parks can get a bad wrap.  You've heard it all:  unkempt, remote, and unsafe, the hoards burn away the grass on their disposable grills, throw dirty nappies into the streams, and give the squirrels a taste for beer.  They are where joggers get knifed, cars get burgled, and dogs get kidnapped for ransom.  In many cases, cities threw money into parks in the 80s or 90s, and then watched the swings and sidewalks crumble, and the gazebo taken over by cheeky neighbourhood kids.

Interestingly, the "parks" we've encountered don't always fall under the heading of finely planted hedges and large sprawls of grass.  A number of successful, locally frequented spaces have been peppered in concrete, run through with roads and marked out by private clubs.  Some of them are rougher than we'd like to find ourselves alone at night with. 

The grittiest park we loved was simply a massive concrete pier called Orla Taumanan, hovering over the Rio Branco, in Boa Vista, Brazil.  Harbouring a few tiny bars and restaurants, the pier was where the townspeople came to wile away their evenings, eat some fresh fish, drink, and watch the sun set over the river.  As one of our first stops on this great continent, we were immediately in love.

Similarly, our favourite park called Cerro de la Glorio in Mendoza, Argentina, was a twisted stone trail at the foothills of the Andes, which brought us huffing and puffing to the statue at the top of a precipice - only to find out a city road spiraled up the same direction.  Families were taking their evening dinners as picnics, leaning against their cars as kids toddled around the parking lot; huge birds of prey circled high on the jet stream above, and as evening sun sank behind the mountains, the stone statue lit up a brilliant red.  Although we didn't stay too long, after dark.

The two most strikingly beautiful places we have been to, thus far, were rural national parks in Brazil:  the first, Iguazu Falls, which straddles Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil, is debated as the world's largest set of falls.  Prone to huge crowds and overrun with backpackers,when we tiptoed out into the mist of 'The Devil's Throat' with the camera-yielding throngs, the falls still took my breath away.  Plus, the Argentinian-side runs night trips during the full moon, and although we paid a pretty penny, seeing the moonlight on the falls at night, and the huge sprays clouding around us as we gaped over the first huge set of falls was my singular favourite moment of this adventure, thus far.

The second park is a day's trip away, and a totally different landscape, nestled in a smattering of islands about a 2 hour bus ride from Rio.  Ilha Grande is a well-known honeymoon destination, and the favourite for Rio's more rustic weekenders.  After Praia de Pipa, Canoa Quebrada and Arial de Ajuda - and their respective high-end crowds and prices - however, what was so refreshing about the beaches and waters around Ilha Grande was simply a "lack of."  No ATM, one dirt road and a smattering of hostels and hotels and restaurants, Ilha Grande used to be the Alcatraz of Brazil (only, like, so much better) - where prisoners were sent to live out their days, doing hard labour and farming.  After they closed the prison down, they turned the island and a few near by into national parkland, and the resulting preservation is remarkable.  We awoke and breakfasted on our hostel's patio, and watched sea turtles getting their breakfast; we kayaked around the inlets and peered into the deep volcanic caves and the myriad of ocean creatures; we ferried and then hiked forty minutes to a remote surfing beach that made the most regular breaks we had seen yet, in Brazil.  It was a magical, incredible place, which was relatively safe from the spread of tourism and overfishing (although the massive vessels we spotted in the bay on our way to and from Ilha Grande was a bit disconcerting), and reinvigorated my love of the beach and ocean.

In Santiago, after ploughing through a meter of snow in the Andes thanks to a very brave/crazy bus driver, the hike (okay, felicula) up to the inspiring San Cristobel was a great introduction to the country.  The legendary Pablo Neruda's house is nestled at the foot of hill, and is said to have found the place a great comfort in a city of concrete.  From the top of the hill, near the concrete Virgin Mary (and in spite of the LOUD Christian music playing) you can see the city stretch out before you in the valley, nestled between the great mountains that surround it.  It is easy to see how Neruda's great love of the country spread from this park.

As we begin our journey northward this week, towards the final point of our South American adventure, in Lima, I'm sure there are a dozen more green spaces I should have named, and five dozen more that we will be able to appreciate and remark upon in the coming weeks - not least the incredible fortress of Machu Pichu. For now, though, it feels good to see we have spent much of our time here so far, not roaming through museums or churches, or stuffed into stiff bus tours, but simply absorbing nature and this earth's beauty.  That's, perhaps, our greatest, greenest goal.

Check out our favourite parks on Virtual Earth!

If you have ever uncorked a bottle of Merlot, only to find that lovely first glass shooting straight to the back of your head in a techno-party of pounding, throbbing pain, then you might be blessed enough to witness some of the after-affects of a sulfide allergy, courtesy of today's commercial wineries.  Sometimes the allergy emerges in puffy red cheeks, or in a cough or sneeze, and sometime, it's debated, in the cold-sweats and chills of a particularly nasty hangover.

Sulfides, in short, are a preservative used to prevent the oxidization of wine, and for stabilising it during transport, and all wineries generally use some form of them, as they provide a more constant, predictable product.  Legally, in fact, organic wines don't really exist.  The EU doesn't even have a definition of 'organic wine', as pretty much all wineries use some form of sulfides.

My allergy to sulfides tends to run the gamut between all the symptoms (discovered through much practice and lots of excruciating pain), with the result being I generally keep away from all red wines, and most oak ed white ones.  Still, as a once lover of all reds, I was hoping our visit to Argentina's wine country would put me in touch with some organic wineries that ditched sulfides and made sweet sweet love to the earth, and my palate.

Considering, too, that much of Argentina's wine, thanks to the dry climate, soil, and lack of pests, verges on organic growing, anyhow (with most wineries not using pre-emptive pesticides and herbicides, and only using them in the event of an outbreak), I didn't think it would be difficult to rock up and discover a good, sulfide-free Malbec or two.

As usual, though, it was a little more complicated than I imagined.

Thanks to bike rental and a map, we visited a number of wineries along a pretty famous strip of Mendoza countryside called Maipu (hee), popping in for free tours and not-so-free tastings.  My constant question ("Do you have any organic wines?"), was met with a huge variety of answers, from "No one has organic wine,", to "We grow organic grapes", to "Organic wine isn't possible to export", to "It is illegal and dangerous to make organic wine".

After hearing other travelers report on organic wineries, however, I investigated further, and, in fact, one of Mendoza's largest wineries, Familia Zuccardi, claims to have 300 hectares of certified organic vines, and are working to convert the rest of their vineyards, as well.  In fact, they also have a line of "organica" wines, one of which (the 2006 Vida Organica Sparkling Chardonnay) won an Argentine wine award.

So we had to check it out.

We wound our way just outside of Mendoza, where the Andes frame the spindly vines across miles of flat land, to where the Familia Zuccardi winery thrusts out of the pebbled earth in a fine display of modern stone architecture.  There, we were met by a bouncy English fellow named Harry, who wound us through the rather empty winery (whose harvest finished 3 weeks ago), and who pointed out all the different production processes, the huge steel vats of ageing wine, the stacks of oak barrels, and then steered us back into the tasting room.  Of course, I peppered him with a number of organic-related questions, and of course, he gave me a number of technical reasons why even the 'organica' range used sulfides for exportation and stabilisation.  Then, however, he made a very good point:  he explained how only very advanced, first-world countries like the UK were interested in sulfide-free wine (and would be able to pay for the related increase in costs to produce the wine), and that because it often takes 5-7 years to develop a new wine product (and the "organic" craze hasn't been around for that long), wine-makers of the world are still really only in the beginning stages of figuring out how sulfide-free wine works, and how they can make a marketable product from it.

This was a very good point, as understandably sulfides are less of an allergen problem than they are a marketing success, and many wineries in the world don't have the resources to waste parts of their harvest on trying to make sulfide-free wine, and instead making red wine vinegar.

Still, it has been severely disappointing to walk away from some of the world's most chemical-free wineries with a bitter headache, and I as our route sends us through other great wine regions of the world (Chile, the western US, New Zealand and Australia), I am hoping to continue my search.

For now, though, here are some good resources on organic wines and the use of sulfides:

More Than Organic  - Trying to promote extremely "naturally made wine" (which differs from organic in that they ban excessive use of sulfites), they dissect a number of EU and French policies on organic wine.  It's a great resource for explanations and labels to watch out for.

Pure Wine - A recommended importer/seller of organic, vegan & biodynamic wines to the UK.  A good collection.

Sedlescombe - The UK's first organic vineyard that does tours and tastings by appointment.  Good for figuring out how wine is actually made. They do ciders and beers, too.

As an aside, the very helpful Roy Cook, of Sedlescombe, explains a little about the sulfide process, and the use of sulfides in Seldescombe wine.  I excerpted it from an email, here.  Thanks, Roy!

Whilst organic standards limit the amount of sulphur dioxide (SO2) which can be added to organic wines to just under half the amount which can be added to conventional wines, SO2 is nevertheless,  added to just about all organic wines. For most wines (dryish whites and reds) the organic maximum is 100mg SO2 per litre.  For sweeter wines more is permitted.

Small amounts of sulphur dioxide are created by the fermentation process itself, so you will not find any wines totally free of SO2.  There are however, some wineries (usually not organic ones) who are experimenting with creating wines without the addition of any SO2, the so called "no Sulphur added" wines.  Probably the reason so few wineries are attempting to create wines without any added SO2 is because of the high-tech equipment, and high capital cost of such equipment.  In addition, the grapes would need to be entirely free of Botrytis (grey mould), as it is SO2 which is used to supress the oxidative function of the botrytis enzyme.

If you wished to try some of our wines then the ones with the lowest SO2 levels are the Dry White and the Pinot Noir-Regent red wine.  Go to https://secure.hosts.co.uk/%7Eenglishorganicwine.co.uk/acatalog/Wines.html

But the wines with the lowest levels of added SO2 are bottle fermented (traditional 'champagne' method) sparkling wines.  Since the carbon dioxide bubbles help to keep the wines fresh and reduce oxidation, there is not the necessity to add so much SO2.  In addition, the grapes used to make sparkling wines have to be free of botrytis, as bottle fermentation could be adversely affected if large amounts of SO2 were required to 'fix' the botrytis enzyme.

If you wished to try our sparkling wines we have a white and a rosé available. Go to https://secure.hosts.co.uk/%7Eenglishorganicwine.co.uk/acatalog/Sparkling.html

I do hope this helps, and please let me know how you get on with any of the above suggestions, as we get a lot of enquiries along these lines so it would be useful to pass on your experiences to others.