Hi ,
When things are difficult and you start refocusing, sometimes the most amazing things happen. If you are a regular reader of my newsletter, you know by now that there are always a lot of ideas in my head that I am want to try out. Sometimes, they become new projects that result in new products and offerings, other times the ideas just becomes stale and don't go anywhere. Perhaps it is just not the time and place for the idea to take off yet.
Or, I simply lose interest and focus.
Or, maybe it was not such a great idea after all.
In the current situation however, this is absolutely the best time to turn ideas into projects and pursue them all the way. There is not much else one can do.
About a month ago, I heard of a contest announced by the Peruvian Tourism Ministry funding novel projects.
Turismo Emprende is the name of the contest.
I was thinking our
Satipo road project would be a great contender for this, but the time was way too short. Deadline was on August 15. The Junin department was still in lockdown, and would be for all of August. There was no way I was going to get all the ducks in the row in time.
A few days later, the deadline was changed to Aug 28. OK, that may be enough time, I thought.
I tried all imaginable ways to get hold of people on the Satipo road, but although I managed to get some initial contacts, the communications with the community, which lacks phone services, was just too difficult.
Simultaneously, I was considering a plan B in Santa Eulalia Canyon. Since around 2005 when we had located some rock walls where condors roosted, I had had the idea, that this area would have an extreme potential for tourism. Who would not want to see the majestic condor, right?
Although we certainly have made several trips to this area to show people condors, one rarely gets as close encounters as one sees them in, for instance, Colca Canyon.
Some five years ago, a new Condor watching project in the local community of Chonta overlooking the Apurimac Canyon in Cusco was getting attention. It involves a 3.5 km rather strenuous hike at high altitude.
I went there with a Swedish celebrity/birder reality game show and their film crew of some 20 people in 2016. A spectacular site and the grand finale of the the said game show. One million swedes were glued to the screen watching condors in the Peruvian Andes.
Chonta has become a big success for the community and many people visit this site when visiting Cusco.
Later that same year, Lorenzo Sympson from Bariloche, who has worked a lot with Condor conservation in Argentina, visited Lima, and we did an excursion to Santa Eulalia Canyon to see condors.
I found a place I thought would be excellent as a feeding station, and started fantasizing about an eco-lodge in connection to the feeding site and to market a similar set-up in Lima as in Chonta, Cusco.
Three years ago, at the Asian Bird Fair in Ulsan, South Korea, I became friends with Carles Santana of Photologistics in Spain, who has a set-up with a number of one-way glass hides in different places in Spain to photograph Vultures. Would it be possible to do something similar in Santa Eulalia Canyon, I wondered?
Maybe, it was not necessary to make a lodge? After all there is a hotel in Huachupampa, which would only need some minor improvements to be quite OK. Just a feeding station and hide with one-way glass would probably work.
Carles and I started thinking about some type of joint venture.
But time flies, and life and business as usual get in the way to allow for ideas to become projects, and for projects to become reality.
Fast forward to 2020. There is no life and there is no business as usual.
Suddenly, it struck me!
Plan B is the CONDOR PROJECT!
In about 10 days, connecting with Carles, we got the project together and I was also able to connect with the Community and Municipality of Huachupampa, and pay the condors a visit a week ago.
I pressed SEND on the Turismo Emprende page just one hour and fifteen minutes before the deadline, after having spent all night, with no sleep, to get our application and video presentation together.
People who have seen the video are very excited about the project, so I think we have a great chance of getting rewarded. Check out this 5 minute presentation.
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