Vicuña project Scouting trip – Peru and Bolivia

In June of the current year we were contact by our friend Luc Jacquet, A well recognize french director who invite us to participate in another filming project. Back in 2013, we worked together for two months in the southeastern jungle of Peru. This time the subject, the site and the client were totally different from what we are used to it.

Our job was to help to organize a scouting trip for a Italian fashion brand of fancy cloth “Loro Piana”, that uses Vicuña fiber for its accesories. The challenge was to operate a diverse team of people from two production companies (french and italian) with its filming crews, and some Loro Piana collaborators between Peru and Bolivia as scouting sites.

We spend 16 days traveling in two groups with different tasks, visiting Vicuñas reserves and also incredible landscapes up in the Peruvian and Bolivian Andes. The main objectives were to find the best locations for next year official filming Project. We had the opportunity to experienced the traditional “Chaccu” activity with the Vicuñas, the incredible salt plains of Uyuni in Bolivia and the spectacular andean scenery including active volcanoes around Arequipa in the “Salinas y Aguada Blanca National Reserve”.

We traveled by charter flights, 4 x 4 trucks, busess with even hiking involved. We camp at 4,200 meters above sea level, we slept in tents, hotels of all the stars known. With any doubt it was a very demanding group but with an amazing good chear including all the drivers, cooks and the local people in each location that maked posible the aparently imposible task, Thanks to ALL of them!!!

The small crew arrived just in time and went straight to the field. The support team in Lima and Arequipa did an incredible job helping them througout the work. It was 21 days of incredible experiences surrounded by, volcanoes, canyons with some doses of rain, snow and ash from active volcanoes.