{"id":10516,"date":"2020-03-10T15:54:44","date_gmt":"2020-03-10T15:54:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tucan.travel\/blog\/?p=10516"},"modified":"2020-09-15T16:00:12","modified_gmt":"2020-09-15T15:00:12","slug":"its-all-about-chocolatada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tucan.travel\/blog\/2020\/03\/its-all-about-chocolatada\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s all about Chocolatada"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Travelling responsibly and having a positive impact on the communities which we visit has always been at the heart of Tucan Travel. Today we are talking with Keiko &#8211; our Latin American Reservations Manager who has been with Tucan Travel for an incredible 20 years. Along with the rest of the Tucan Travel Peru staff, Keiko has been organising an event in celebration of&nbsp;<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Chocolatada<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for the last 16 years &#8211; which brings chocolate and gifts to rural communities outside of the city.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_10517\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10517\" style=\"width: 680px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10517\" src=\"https:\/\/www.tucan.travel\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Chocolatada.jpg\" alt=\"The Tucan Travel Team \" width=\"680\" height=\"455\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.tucan.travel\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Chocolatada.jpg 680w, https:\/\/www.tucan.travel\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Chocolatada-300x201.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-10517\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Tucan Travel Team<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h3><b>When and why did Chocolatada start?<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Chocolatada is an important tradition in Peru. It\u2019s normally done in December and simply involves giving out chocolate and small gifts to local children in schools, churches and communities. It\u2019s something the children really look forward to and everyone gets involved &#8211; often families and friends will get together and put some money into their own event. Tucan Travel has a very strong bond with Peru and it was something that we wanted to get involved with, especially since myself and so many of the other staff are Peruvian.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We started the project in 2004 and I can\u2019t believe it\u2019s almost been 16 years now! I did my studies in a Catholic school in Lima and during that time I helped organise a lot of events, so this felt like a natural thing for me to do. The first event we ever did was in our hotel in Cusco at the time. We arranged for Peeky (a Tucan Travel staff member) to be our first Santa and he arrived with the gifts &#8211; about 400 children showed up and the police had to close the street! We had no idea of the impact this would have but I think the yellow truck does draw some attention. Pretty soon we started doing it outside of the city, because we wanted to visit the communities which didn\u2019t have the option of going into Cusco. We decided to involve the communities of our Inca Trail porters because it made the most sense &#8211; we wanted them to see us as family and not just employers.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_10518\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10518\" style=\"width: 680px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10518\" src=\"https:\/\/www.tucan.travel\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Chocolatada-1.jpg\" alt=\"Setting up for Chocolatada\" width=\"680\" height=\"455\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.tucan.travel\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Chocolatada-1.jpg 680w, https:\/\/www.tucan.travel\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Chocolatada-1-300x201.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-10518\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Setting up for Chocolatada<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h3><b>How do you pick a village?<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We ask our tour leaders to look out for rural villages that might benefit from some help, but over the last few years we have mainly visited the villages of our Inca Trail porters. That\u2019s our tradition now! If our staff find a new village we will always be open to helping and bringing this tradition as far we can.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_10519\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10519\" style=\"width: 680px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10519\" src=\"https:\/\/www.tucan.travel\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Chocolatada-4.jpg\" alt=\"Handing out chocolate and gifts\" width=\"680\" height=\"455\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.tucan.travel\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Chocolatada-4.jpg 680w, https:\/\/www.tucan.travel\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Chocolatada-4-300x201.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-10519\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Handing out chocolate and gifts<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h3><b>What happens at the event?<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We have to prepare quite a lot now. We find out how many children are in the village so that we have enough toys and food. We then buy the ingredients for the hot chocolate &#8211; normally oats, sugar, cocoa, cinnamon and milk. We will get some colouring books, pens and pencils for the children too. Everything gets put in bags and loaded into our vans and then we drive to the village, which can be a few hours outside of Cusco. Now we normally do it on a Saturday so that it doesn\u2019t affect the working week. The communities will also offer us some food, sometimes guinea pig, trout or potatoes. It\u2019s an exchange that everyone enjoys.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-10520\" src=\"https:\/\/www.tucan.travel\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Chocolatada-5.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"680\" height=\"455\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.tucan.travel\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Chocolatada-5.jpg 680w, https:\/\/www.tucan.travel\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Chocolatada-5-300x201.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>Tucan Travel have been operating in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tucan.travel\/destinations\/south-america\/peru\">Peru <\/a>for 33 years. With the help of the fantastic teams in Lima and Cusco they are able to keep the tradition of Chocolatada going strong. If you are visiting <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tucan.travel\/destinations\/south-america\/peru\">Peru <\/a>in December or January with Tucan Travel and want to find out about contributing to Chocolatada please contact your Adventure Specialist. Small gifts for the children are always welcome.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Travelling responsibly and having a positive impact on the communities which we visit has always been at the heart of Tucan Travel. Today we are talking with Keiko &#8211; our Latin American Reservations Manager who has been with Tucan Travel for an incredible 20 years. Along with the rest of the Tucan Travel Peru staff, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":10518,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[389,1832,1],"tags":[103,24,15],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v15.2.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>It\u2019s all about Chocolatada - Tucan Travel Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Chocolate is a special event for Tucan Travel in Peru. 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