The 2017 Sustainable Tourism Award, convened by the Green Fund and the Latin American Landscape Initiative (LALI), in order to encourage tourism ventures that respect cultural traditions of local communities and their environment, gave a special mention to the Pacha Trek project 'Walking with the Kallawayas', in the category 'Landscape and Community Rural Tourism Projects', in the framework of the VI LALI Forum and the First International Landscape Symposium 'Thinking and Feeling the Landscape', carried out in Quindio, Colombia.
The Pacha Trek route 'Walking with the Kallawayas' is a tourist product that involves four Kallawaya communities: Quta Pampa, Caluyo, Chacarapi and Chari, in the Charazani municipality and the Apolobamba National Integrated Management Area. The initiative provides a tourism experience that links culture and biodiversity conservation, while improving family income. The project is supported by the Charazani Municipal Autonomous Government, Wildlife Conservation Society and the National Program of Bioculture and Climate Change.
The Pacha Trek route is not only a trail that allows the aesthetic enjoyment of landscapes of mountains, snow-capped peaks, lagoons and extensive prairies that characterize Bolivia’s high Andes region. It is also a reunion with the history, cultural legacy and traditions of communities which were part of the ancient Kallawaya dominion, and that still maintain their cultural practices, festivities, rituals, culinary traditions and artistic manifestations. Because of this important cultural background, in 2003 UNESCO recognized the Kallawaya cosmovision as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
At each stage of the trail there are different cultural activities and possibilities for recreation in nature. Paths to enjoy the scenic beauty and observe emblematic animals of the Andean fauna, such as vicuña and Andean condor, and a diversity of birds; archaeological sites, agricultural terraces and pre-Hispanic routes. The textile production, a major art form of the Andean cultures, using camelid wool and presenting a variety of designs representing animals with symbolic significance for the kallawaya world, is considered one of the best in Bolivia. The tradition of Kallawaya doctors or shamans, expert herbalists and specialists in the knowledge and use of a great diversity of medicinal plants, has a well-deserved recognition in both the country and abroad.
The Pacha Trek route goes even further as the visitor can share a unique experience of sharing the daily life with families from the communities. The special mention received by the 2017 Sustainable Tourism Award recognizes the value of community biocultural tourism to improve the income of the families but also to connecting the urban population with nature and the Kallawaya culture.