How to travel to Galapagos Island or Hike the Inca Trail for Free
by Vidal Jaquehua - Licensed Peruvian Guide / Co-founder of Adios Adventure Travel
The fact that we took a group whose leader went there for free, as you know, it was because she has her group. She had a full size group ready to go. And the fact that they choose Adios Adventure Travel, it was because they know that we are very carefull whit their people and we attend to them.
I think that the fact of choosing the island hopping instead of the boats or the cruises to Galapagos is because we want to let the people know that there is
good number of people living there (a lot of times people thinks that they will be the first ones there) but is a big surprice for a lot of the people including the group members that we had, or even to me, for the first time, that I was there. But now a day you can find over 30,000 people in the different islands of the Galapagos.
We believe that the tourist business can help us to develop one place in especial here in South America where we need to work, so the people is not begging, but yes looking for to offer a service. One person can provide jobs to Peru or Ecuador, and in that way take advantage of this activity call tourism.
The one that can have benefits in both ways. By one hand the tourist get the service and by the other hand the local people can provide the services, so as you know this can generate thousands of dollars for the economy. But in alot of place the ones that get the benefit of this activitie is just the big investors, (the rich get richer).
That is the case of Galapagos where if the classic tourist goes there, go in a cruise spending thousents of dollars, and the only ones that get the benefit are the boat owners (small number of people ). A lot of times the tourist even get to stay in the island, beliving that those places are inhavited just buy the iguanas.
Staying in the island more people get to work in this activities, and the local people also get to be involve in the eco-tourism, or became to be consius about the place where they live, so this is the reason for us to choose this kind of activities. I think that we can make sure that the sustainable tourism is one of the ways to get there, involving the locals in order that they can offer their product. As you know Ecuador has a good growing economy. They do export alot of product like roses, bananas, chocolate, etc, and i think that if they can develop other sector call tourism busines, it will be big there. This is the kind of place that has a lot to offer.
On regards Peru. I think that we try to encorage people to go on hikes because this is one of the direct ways to help so many families, because each hiker get two porters (two families) that get a good salary from the company, so hiking the Inca Trail the tours get to help a lot of people not only be in the place, is also providing jobs to the people. It happens that if someone brings 7 friends, they can hike the Inca Trail for free.
Got friends? Gather them up, then contact Adios Adventure Travel to set up your trip.