Last month I finished my last Poncho Tour spending Good Friday in Tilcara (always one of the best places for Easter colour), visiting some familiar places like the Fourteen Coloured hill of Hornocal, the Salinas grandes and Colome winery, and doing two of my favourite hikes, the Inca trail in the Quebrada del Toro and La Yesera, near Cafayate.
I was accompanying Nicola and Peter, a couple from Germany who came through an old contact, Nicolai Sossola, who I met when I first came to Salta in 2000.
I am reassured to think that all these places will still be there when I want to go back; I just won’t be driving and responsible for my guests’ wellbeing.
As announced on my last blog of 2025, after more than 18 years of running a tour company, having previously worked as a newspaper journalist and TV producer since 1987, today Alicia and I officially signed over control to one of our excellent and long-standing guides, Rodrigo Bisbal, who many Poncho Tours travellers will already know.
We will stop working full-time and lean into our retirement: next month, Alicia and I are off to explore Panama and Costa Rica in central America and by Christmas, we will be back “home” in the UK for our first family festive reunion since 2012.
Rodrigo knows the company inside out, having worked with us for more than 13 years; though he has been involved in tourism in north west Argentina much longer than I have.
This business is always challenging, especially in a country as unpredictable as Argentina, and our visitor numbers for the first three months of 2026 have been down year on year for us (and, in more extreme fashion) nationwide.
This has been exacerbated by the blockade of the Straits of Hormuz, and rising airline prices.
But with the visit of the first person this year from Armenia, we have now had guests doing trips with Poncho Tours from 52 different countries: and our figures for January to April are still above our monthly average.
South America is starting to feel like one of the safest places on the planet right now, so I am sure travellers from across the world will continue to visit.
Even on my last trip, I was still blown away by landscape I’ve seen many times in different lights and times of year, so can imagine what it must feel like when you see it for the first time: and I still get a buzz off my guests’ reactions.
I will still be casting a paternal eye over Poncho Tours, in close touch with Rodrigo, and, who knows, I may pop up as a tour guide if we get really busy towards the end of the year!
But for now it’s farewell… and thanks to all of you who have shared wonderful moments with me since my first trip from Cafayate with Kathleen and Whitney from Canada in June 2008.
