Quechua Indian farmers eat Pachamanca, a traditional Andean food made of native potatoes, at the International Potato Center (CIP) experimental station in the village of Aymara in the Andean highlands of the Huancavelica region, which is 3,950 meters (12,959 feet) above sea level, May 28, 2007. The CIP conserves genetic samples of most of the potatoes native to Peru, the birthplace of the potato with more than three thousand varieties. Most of the varieties that the CIP keeps cannot be grown outside the Andes due to the region's particular climatic and ecological conditions.