The Llama’s ass, tea leaves, and a mountain where the Royal Incas came for guidance from the still-reverent spirit world. Our last instalment (here) of the ‘In from the Outpost’ (on tea’ journeys through the Andean world. Pariaqaqa, a mountain that bowed all mortals in reverence features. A team full of passion for the skies, for the stories and for the leaves is to be thanked. The journey transverses so much more than simple national borders and demarkations. It is a fluid and efficient set of routes that striated, wandered and then veered back into one another. Conceptually, the whole journey inevitably leads back to that stunning living concept, Ayni, or ‘reciprocity’. A term for the times!
Moving along with the Llamas towards Pariaqaqa
About JeffFuchs
Having lived for a decade in Yunnan, Fuchs’ work has centred on indigenous mountain cultures, oral histories along with an obsessive interest in tea.
Fuchs is the author of 'The Ancient Tea Horse Road' (Viking-Penguin) and he was the subject of 'The Tea Explorer' documentary based on his exploration of the Tea Horse Road.
His photos and stories have appeared on three continents in publications such as Kyoto Journal, TRVL, and Outpost Magazine, as well as The Spanish Expedition Society, The Earth, Silkroad Foundation, The China Post Newspaper, The Toronto Star, The South China Morning Post, and UNESCO amongst others. Various pieces of his work are part of private collections in Europe, North America, and Asia. Fuchs served as Asian Editor at Large for five years at award-winning Outpost magazine.
Jeff has worked with schools and universities, giving talks on both the importance of oral traditions, tea and mountain cultures.
His recently released book ‘The Ancient Tea Horse Road’ (Penguin-Viking Publishers) details his 8-month groundbreaking journey traveling and chronicling one of the world’s great trade routes, The Tea Horse Road. Fuchs is the first westerner to have completed the entire route stretching almost six thousand kilometers through the Himalayas a dozen cultures.
Fuchs partnered with Wild China to create a journey along the Tea Horse Road which National Geographic Traveler called one of the "50 Trips of a Lifetime".
He is co-founder of Akahiao Nature Institute on the island of Hawai'i along with his wife, Julie Rogers.
