peru pollada fundraiser
Recently our Intrepid Office in Cuzco organised a pollada. Pollada comes from the word pollo, which means chicken in Spanish. The last time we organised a pollada was to support one of our Inca Trail porters who became sick and needed financial help to cover the doctor and hospital bills. This time, the pollada was to raise money for The Intrepid Foundation.
While sometimes it’s not easy for our team to come and join in our regular pub quiz fundraising nights, a pollada requires little to no effort to get the message to our leaders, hotel friends, local transport staff, Inca trail guides, cook and porters. Mention pollada to anyone in Cuzco and text messages will be flying off cellphones as a viral effect, people will anxiously be waiting for the date of the event!
So what is a pollada?
A pollada is a gathering based around eating chicken and potatoes, and playing sport games. Chicken and potato are staples in the diet here and most of the communities we work with are based in the ‘Potato Park’ (Parque de la Papa) where some 2300 varieties of potatoes are grown.
Polladas usually start at 9am and continue through the day until 6 or 7 in the evening: Football championship for the guys and volleyball championship for the girls, slowly oven-cooked spiced chicken and local beers for sale throughout the day.
Last Saturday, we sold 413 plates of chicken and 400 beers (helped by the fact that there’s no need to drive in Cuzco and everyone can use public transport!) In total raised US$764 for The Intrepid Foundation. All of that money will be doubled by Intrepid Travel and go towards supporting all of our South American projects.
A big thank you to the Intrepid Cuzco office team for organizing the pollada and we are looking forward to our next chicken gathering in about 3 months time!
