On the verdant shores of picturesque Lake Piuray, the Explorandes team of guides and staff from all departments gathered on Saturday May 4th for a day of beautifying a little slice of the Sacred Valley we all love and enjoy. Lake Piuray is home to Explorandes’ outdoors headquarters, where guests enjoy a host of outdoor activities including picnics, yoga, stand up paddle boarding, kayaking, and mountain biking in a beautiful setting.
It’s also home to quite the collection of trash.
With the good fortune of the sun god Inti shining down on us (a blessing during the Andean rainy season), we managed to scour every inch of the lake collecting a grand total of 129 kilograms of trash in four hours. We set off on foot, on bike, by paddleboard, and by kayak to reach every corner and crevice, leaving not even a bottle cap behind.
The trash cleanup event was organized in parallel to a much larger event simultaneously occurring in Lima, HAZlo por tu playa. Going into its 5th year, HAZlo por tu playa is the creation of two standout Peruvian NGO’s: Conservamos por Naturaleza and Life Out of Plastic (L.O.O.P.).
With the guidance and support of these two NGO’s, we operated this smaller scale version of the event in the same fashion, picking up and taking note of every piece of trash we came across so as to collect some rudimentary data on the waste making its way to Lake Piuray’s shores. We found everything from stray clothing to discarded diapers and plastic toys to glass and plastic bottles, gas tanks, buckets, pots, and bags.
As an organization conscious of our impact on the local and global environment, we’re proud to have participated in such an impacting event and to physically see our impact in the 129 kilograms of trash no longer polluting beautiful Lake Piuray. For more information about this event and how to get involved in a similar event during your visit to Peru, contact us.
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