On our recent trip to Europe we stopped off for a week in Peru, a country which Alicia and I first visited in 1999.
Twenty five years ago, we actually met on a bus from Copacabana in Bolivia to Puno in Peru, two cities in different countries sharing the same lake: but you can read more about that in another blog about the floating islands of lake Titicaca.
This time we stayed with our friends Gary, another lucky English guy who met a woman from South America, and his wife Malka.
Malka is from Cusco, and still has strong links with her extended family based there.
But since meeting Gary in 2001, they have globe trotted, which is how we came to make friends with them when they came to live in Salta during 2016 and 2017.
Gary likes to say that after growing up in Coventry, at the age of 31 he fled his well-paid but humdrum life as a mechanical engineer in the West Midlands: indeed after settling in Peru (and meeting Malka) he named his original Latin-America-focussed travel company “Escaped“.
He reflects: “I travelled around Mexico and Brazil and then landed in Peru. After doing the Inca trail to Machu Picchu about a hundred times, I met my own Inca princess!”
Since a stint with Malka living in Georgia and Turkey in 2018, Gary has developed a new wine tour business covering much of the world, Wine Tours Wine Tasting, including parts of the globe where you wouldn’t know the sacred vine existed.
As many Poncho Tours customers will know, we have business links with Gary, running his Argentina wine tours from Salta to Mendoza.
But more importantly than occasionally working together is the strong friendship we have formed: so it was a delight to visit them on Malka’s home territory.
Having visited Machu Picchu before in 1999 (a few days before meeting Alicia), on our request, Gary and Malka squired us round some of the Inca sites in the Sacred Valley we didn’t already know, like Pisac and Ollantaytambo, with its spectacular terraces and ingenious irrigation systems.
It was also wonderful to return to the ancient city of Sacsayhuaman, which guards the Inca capital Cusco, and sample some excellent Peruvian cuisine with our friends.
Gary and Malka have just built a house at Calca in the middle of the Sacred Valley, and we lucky enough to be their first foreign guests!
Made from lots of rock and metal, this industrial-chic construction has huge windows offering spectacular 360 degrees views of the surrounding mountains. One of the most impressive features of the house is the dining table.
Huge metal beams, once part of a road bridge spanning the Urubamba river, were reclaimed from a junk yard, welded together, and completed with a glass surface.
The table is unique, and a real beast, needing four strapping locals to carry it into position.
In a huge earthquake the house might fall down but the table will be fine (maybe not the glass!)
Another notable feature is the wine cellar, which Gary says makes wine selection one of the great pleasures in his life, even when it’s just an everyday drinker for lunch.
As you’ll see from Gary’s own Instagram, they have recently planted vines, so we are looking forward to returning to sample the results.
Having now lived in South America for more than 16 years, I realise all the details I missed in Cusco and the Sacred Valley the first time round: and the value of a local guide.
If there’s one thing I’ve learnt running a travel company specialising in private tailor-made tours in a small part of the world (in my case, north west Argentina, and parts of southern Bolivia and northern Chile): there’s always more to discover even if you’re returning for the umpteenth time.
- There’s more on our Instagram page about our visit to Cusco and Pisac.
- In Cusco, I strongly recommend the Coca Museum in the hippy-tinged district of San Blas: it’s well worth the breathtaking climb from the main square.
- And we had great meals at both Rucula and Campo in Cusco, and La Placita in Pisac.
- If you’re based in the UK, and looking for tours to South America and beyond, I recommend a small family-owned agency Llama Travel, which is run by another friend of mine, Luca Newbold.
