Greetings to all of you, personal friends and supporters from the CARAVANA ARCOIRIS por la PAZ, on the beginning of this new gregorian year, 2004.

Hoping to find all of you well, renewed, and full of visions for the coming cycle, I have decided to send all of you an S.O.S in behalf of this project. La Caravana is in its seventh year of existence travelling and doing the unique work of environmental education, entertainment for peace, defence of traditional nations and networking of alternatives through the Americas. 

The Caravan has crossed borders of thirteen different countries, done hundreds of presentations, workshops, festivals, conferences, audiovisuals and special events in the most remote indigenous communities from Central America, the Caribbean and South America, in rural and urban villages and cities and in most capitals from the countries we visited in what is now a journey of more than seven years.

Last September, many of you may have come or heard from our latest event,  EL LLAMADO DEL CONDOR, a Vision Council for Bioregional Action gathering, that brought together more than 700 representatives from 34 diferent countries for a whole week of sharing of experiences, wisdom, ceremonies, multicultural activities, love and magic at the feet of Machu Picchu, in the highlands of the peruvian Andes

Some of you may have also heard, that on our way to the gathering, on the night of August 24^th, we had a terrible accident on the mountains near Nasca, that fortunately did not cost us any human loss, but left us with only one of our two buses. The Suenito, the largest one, the one that carried most of our crew, the kitchen, the theater equipment, and that also pulled the trailer with the huge Circus Rainbow Tent was totalled in the accident. We had no insurance. A lot of our equipment was also destroyed, or had to be given away, because we did not have the possibility to carry it anymore. We also incurred in a debt of $5000 US with the owner of a truck that was also partially destroyed in the accident when our bus was without brakes and hit the truck before smashing against the mountain. That saved our lives, leaving 10 people bruised and shocked, and half of our infrastructure gone in a couple of minutes.

With big pains, lots of expenses and work, we have been able to reach the north of Chile, and are at this moment camped at the city of Iquique, trying to figure a way to get back in our wheels again to continue our journey, and to continue our work in view of the coming international Vision Council that will take place in Brasil in 2005, that we are coordinating with the Brasilian groups representing many social and spiritual movements trying to build a better world and future for those to come.

We were able to construct in December a trailer that will be our mobile kitchen, equipped with the solar panels and batteries to provide energy to the whole Caravan, but we need to acquire a used vehicle to pull the trailer, and to find a second trailer to carry the Circus tent and the theater equipment. We also, after more than 7 years travelling, need to change the engine of our second bus to diesel, as the costs of gasoline in South America are taking most of our earnings. So, at this point, the Caravan is going through a mobility crisis, and this is the reason we are asking you to help us out, so we can continue a work, that few people are doing on the planet, and that we feel is worth continuing. 

According to the prices of vehicles here in Chile, we have calculated that we need to raise $30,000 dollars to get back to where we were last August, before the accident, and this is the reason we are sending this SOS ... in order to hear from all of you, receive your advice, your donations, your ideas or leads as to how and where and to whom we should direct our request to get help for that purpose.

We have a bank account, and will be really thankful for any donation you can send, if you can and if you think the Caravana should continue its journey to the Tierra del Fuego, as we promised we would in 1996 when we departed from our ecovillage in Mexico, Huehuecoyotl.