Our three-week film shoot in Peru is drawing to a close as we head back to Cusco after two great days at Machu Picchu. Everyone on the crew — associate producer Ashley Tindall, cinematographer Vicente Franco, sound recordist Willy Elizarde, and fixer Vernonica Perez — is getting a little tired as we’ve had several 4 am calls, once to climb a glacier to film a Q’eros ceremony, once to film sunrise bringing light back to “The Lost City of the Incas” (no longer lost as evidenced by the swarms of tourists). Hiking many miles with gear and working in extreme cold at 15,000 feet definitely took a toll. But spirits are high as we enjoy the beauty of the Andes and the warmth and wisdom of the native people.

With the help of Q’eros community president Marianno Carmen Machacca and 23-year old videographer Fredy Machacca and his band of horsemen (Juan, Anselmo, Lorenzo, Gregorio and others) we had a remarkably adventurous and productive seven days with the Q’eros on their annual pilgrimage to Q’olloy riti and then back home to the village of Cochomoco. I recognize the arrogance of trying to access a community like the Q’eros with very little time invested in developing trust, but with the help of some truly generous people who have worked with the Q’eros for years it felt like we met with acceptance, approval and trust, and the footage we came away with will, I think, be deeply revealing of profound sacred places and people. The weather cooperated, snow-capped mountains (Apus) like sacred Mt. Ausangate revealed themselves, we lived to tell the tale of our 4 am ascent to the foot of the retreating glacier at Q’olloy riti, and even Benito the Q’eros shaman gave us an interview.

At a community meeting after filming a potato harvest, I agreed to help pay for the roof of a new and badly-needed school in Cochomoco and Fredy Machacca asked three of our film team to become godparents and participate in the ritual of cutting his one-year-old son Nicasio’s hair, which we accept as a responsibility for the future, as we look forward to years of collaboration and friendship with Fredy and the Q’eros people.

In the misty mountains of the Vilcanota Cordillera, southeast of Cusco, on the steep slopes of the Andes, the Q’eros grow potatoes, herd alpaca, chew coca and pray to the mountain deities they call Apus. On my recent research trip to the Q’eros village of Qochamoqo, I was accompanied by Milton Gamarra, the Potato Repatriation Coordinator with Associación ANDES, who hiked in at harvest time to see how different potato varieties were doing in the face of climate change. The Q’eros harvested three fields at varying elevations and carefully bagged the different types of potatoes to determine how each seed type is faring under a variety of conditions. As El Niños come and go over the years, resilience has always been central to the vitality of Q’eros culture, and as the planet warms and the glaciers melt, the Q’eros are determined to be on the cutting edge of awareness with regard to climate change and what they can do to survive it.

Watch a new four-minute film clip documenting my recent trip: Research in the Andes.