Volunteer to Build the World's Best Ecological Trek

  Peru

• All Other Areas in Peru: 
Rural Areas

Durations of Program: 1-2 weeks, 2-4 weeks, 5-8 weeks, 9-12 weeks and 3-6 months
Typical Duration of Program: 1-2 weeks
Dates: year around

Description: This volunteer program is to finance construction of the world's best ecological trail. With each week of volunteering, you become a member of the Amazon Waterfalls Associates with voting privileges to elect officers, do planning of future activities and kept informed of progress and events along the way. The costs are less and more rewarding than any foreign travel as noted that all of this years volunteers plan to return. Two volunteers and their team did all of the groundwork, planning and trailblazing in the first month. In the final couple weeks 2 other volunteers with their teams paved the worst and muddy access part of the trail with gigantic stones weighing over a ton each. This amazing feat was half a km long and assisted with oxen. From here on the village tourist committee say they can construct 100 meters per day along the dry cliff ledge through a pristine Amazon uncut jungle with soaring cliffs overhead.

The village can provide lodging and all meals for USD 10 per day in a common room, or you may opt to use a bit more expensive room in the local hotel. The trail begins 3 km up a road, but for extra you can hire a moped taxi to take you there.

Highlights: This is a pristine zone that had no regular access until a few years ago, as witnessed by all of the ongoing discoveries. Next to the equator and a mild altitude of 2000 meters, every day has perfect temperatures and cool nights. It is free of poisonous snakes and creatures you associate with the lower Basin. The natives are super friendly, honest and hard workers, so our doors were unlocked and we didn't have to tell our teams what to do or be after them. The dry season is from the end of May until about November. The Andes are second only to the Himalayas in height, but our zone is lower where the main Amazon tributary is falling out of the mountains into the lower basin. We were told of 7 unknown archaeological sites the first week and one volunteer "discovered" a funeral mausoleum high up under a cliff overhang. It contained many bones and an intact mummy as shown on our website.

This zone has America's best combination of Ecology AND Archaeology combined. Extended tours could go to Fortress Kuelap, the largest building structure of the Americas, the Leymebamba museum that contains the 219 mummies discovered recently on a cliff above the Laguna de los Condores. There are fantastic caves on our site and in the zone (the Yumbilla waterfall falls out of a cave that we explored for the first time and discovered an intact bowl deep inside). Then there is probably the best un-restored major Inca road radiating in the four points of the compass that leads off into either unexplored or unknown routes connecting Cuzco with Colombia and the desert coast with the Amazon. Also City of the Dead is like a city built on a ledge almost like half way down the Grand Canyon. Then there are the funeral statues like Karajia with a mummy inside far up on an inaccessible cliff that look like Easter Island statues. This is among a few of the many ruins in this zone.

Qualifications: We will accept a variety of skills, including English or other language teachers, horticultural and birding expertise skills to plant flowering plants to feed exotic hummingbirds including the world's most exotic and endangered species the Marvelous Spatuletail. Also planting fruiting plants to feed monkeys, tucons, Cock of the Rock, parrots and more bird varieties than in the USA and Europe combined. Also to use our power point projector to teach tourism, birding skills, languages, and farming skills. These "easier" jobs should attract families, and yes, helping your team construct the ecological trail past the "parade of gigantic waterfalls".

Cost in US$: USD 55 per day

Salary / Pay: You will have a vote for each week of volunteering as a member of our elite Amazon Waterfall Associates to elect officers, do planning, and future direction. This is a very "first floor" unique opportunity. This may lead to future projects and lodges in other strategic locations to build a sustainable tourist income to preserve the ecology in the Dept. of Amazonas. You may never find a more pleasant atmosphere and climate. The village has a medical clinic but hospitals are not too far away. There are no language requirements as our staff and team are ready to assist you. This may be a good way to immerse yourself in Spanish. The food is basic and good and we didn't get sick. With the fresh altitude and exercise, you will likely lose weight without trying. Your change in lifestyle will make an easy transition to quit smoking or other undesired habits. You will have a lifetime memory of doing something spectacular, helping others, "saving the ecology", and accomplishment.

Experience Required: no

Typical Volunteer: In 2009 we had one German female in Peru doing her thesis in other disciples. We had one male from the UK that lives permanently in Lima. One was a Peruvian whose sister lives in the USA and told him about this opportunity. Dr. Phil Whitman is the major builder of canopy walks and observation towers all over the world, as the Amazon, Africa, Central America, India and in the USA. His participation reflects his feeling that this project stands above all the other ecological trips in the world. His degree includes environmental studies. Then there is myself that has been building lodges for villages and leading the infrastructure development in remote villages of this zone since before it was readily accessible.

Age Range: any age

This Program is open to Worldwide Participants. This Program is also open to Families, Couples and Individuals

Participants Travel to Peru Independently

Typically Participants Work in Groups of With your team of 3 villagers

Application Process Involves:

• Online Application plus Application Assessment

Post-Program Services Include:

• Alumni Network

Amazon Waterfall Associates's Mission Statement: This is an outreach of Los Tambos Chachapoyanos. We have been building lodges for villages for over 20 years in Peru's Dept. of Amazonas to give them a sustainable tourism income as an incentive to protect their archaeology and ecology. Our project is to build a trail connecting about 18 super high waterfalls falling from the world's 2nd highest mountains into the world's greatest rainforest. Yumbilla was discovered last year and measured to be almost 3 times as high as the Eiffel Tower.

Year Founded: 1987