Charo León-Amezaga with a sampling of her locally-inspired accessories.

Feeling at home, truly at ease in another’s country is a difficult emotion to create. You can’t just slip into a different culture. So we have done our doing our best to smooth your path by introducing our ‘friends in the city’ service.

In fact this is less of a service and more of a friendly favour. Essentially, we will carefully match one of our Peruvian friends in Lima or Cuzco to you and your companions, and they will unveil the real gems of their city to you over the course of a day, giving you a fascinating insight into its history, society and day-to-day comings and goings. Taking you to visit their favourite vendor in the local market, dropping by the hottest art gallery opening and taking stock in the best coffee shop in town.

And these are no ordinary guides. Take one of our friends, Charo León-Amezaga. Educated in the US, Charo spent many years working in Madrid and New York before returning to Peru more than a decade ago. Her life is full of colour, project managing sustainable development programmes, such as a dry forest reforestation project with the Royal Botanical Gardens Kew in London (see previous story) – while working with local artisans to develop their creativity. For example, fusing modern fashion accessory design with traditional glass bead, loom and knitting techniques. She has even extended her creativity to develop special packaging and pillow gifts for Aracari, and is famous for her condiments and jams.

Charo sees her new role as a wonderful opportunity to broaden all horizons. “On one level we will share a similar international outlook, but I look forward to opening their eyes to all Lima has to offer, while I look forward to learning from their outside perspective.”

Our friend in Cuzco, Rosi Blume has a background in jewellery and graphic design and is very well connected through her family network and her former job at the American Embassy in Lima. Twelve years ago she moved to Cuzco when she met and married Peter Frost, the British–born, Cuzco-based photographer and author. Rosi is looking forward to the experience, “As your local friend, I will show you around this beautiful and ancient city. Would you like to take a closer look at some of the architecture? Browse the shops and bazaars? Visit some of the best spots for quality Andean textiles? See a fascinating piece of local theatre or dance? I can help you to make the best of your time in Cuzco, and I am sure I will learn from you too because that’s half the point of meeting people and making new friends.”

Travelling with Aracari is both about what you know, but especially about whom you know. Aracari draws its knowledge and wealth of experience to create imaginative journeys from the contributions of its friends, both clients and associates. Take Mervyn Samuel, a client of Aracari who has just published the ultimate guidebook about Ayacucho, the historic Peruvian city famous for its 33 churches – one for every year of Jesus’s life. While, our specialist guide in Cuzco Elizabeth Kuon has co-authored a fascinating book detailing the development of intellectual thought in South America between1900-1950. Bi-lingual, each of our friends has a fascinating story to tell.

If you would like to meet one of our special friends, please email Ricky at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .