Hearts Cafe Ollantaytambo UK and Peru registered NGO Living Heart is associated with social enterprise Hearts Café Ollantaytambo on the main square of Ollantaytambo in the Sacred Valley. Quality Food at Hearts Cafe Ollantaytambo Meals at the café are not gourmet, rather they constitute great quality comfort food. All of the food is very delicious and made from good quality ingredients, most of which grown locally. There are a whole array of interesting options, some of which are not always available in Peru. Creating local employment All of the staff in the café are people who previously suffered from domestic abuse, and who are now offered work and shelter by the NGO. All of the profits go towards the projects that the NGO is involved with. As well as highly encouraging travellers to stop by the cafe, it is possible for our guests to arrange a visit with Sonia Newhouse to discuss the work of Living Heart in full. Please contact us for more details. Supporting Andean Communities The NGO Living Heart works with five highland communities in the Sacred Valley, offering a wide variety of vital support. The founder of the NGO is Sonia Newhouse, an English woman in her early 80s, who has dedicated the last decade of her life to helping local communities. Amongst other support, Living Heart provides educational supplies and learning materials to children; they organise volunteer art teachers and theatre classes for children; they provide nutritional diets to younger children and abandoned elderly people; they offer family planning advice and contraception; and they work with small scale water purification and elimination of risk from water borne parasites. Although Living Heart does not disclose which communities they work with in order that they can remain protected and undisturbed by outside visitors, travellers can visit Heart's Café
Hearts Cafe Ollantaytambo UK and Peru registered NGO Living Heart is associated with social enterprise Hearts Café Ollantaytambo on the main square of Ollantaytambo in the Sacred Valley. Quality Food at Hearts Cafe Ollantaytambo Meals at the café are not gourmet, rather they constitute great quality comfort food. All of the…
La Tierra de los Yachaqs - translated as "The land of the wise" - is the name given to the community tourism Peru initiative in the Sacred Valley. I had a chance to try out several of their responsible tourism village experiences that allow an authentic insight into Andean life. Community Tourism Peru: Andean Life in the Sacred Valley Working with five communities, the mission of La Tierra de los Yachaqs is to preserve the history and traditions of local communities while enabling them to support their economy with responsible, authentic and high-quality tourism. This consists of travellers visiting the communities and participating in local customs, traditions and practices. Read more on the Route of the Achupalla gentle hike and weaving experience in Amaru village. Economic empowerment through tourism The community tourism peru initiative empowers locals to actually design and operate visits to their community. They must decide upon exactly what areas of their culture should be shown throughout the visit and are in control of the planning, booking and guiding.... they're even trained to recieve and respond email bookings! The name is closely tied in because the focus is on local people themselves having the wisdom to know what aspects of their culture are the most important to show to travellers, and to explain this properly. When compared to other projects in the region, where external observers march in and dictate what the visit should look like (which unfortunately happens all too often), the intrinsic value of La Tierra de los Yachaqs becomes apparant. That the word Yachaqs is a Quechua word reinforces ideas of pre-Columbian heritage, rooting the project firmly in the Sacred Valley and focusing entirely on local communities. The Route of the Acupalla with Tierra de los Yachaqs A Warm Community welcome On this particular sunny
La Tierra de los Yachaqs – translated as “The land of the wise” – is the name given to the community tourism Peru initiative in the Sacred Valley. I had a chance to try out several of their responsible tourism village experiences that allow an authentic insight into Andean life….
They’ve been heralded by Condé Nast Traveler as "a travel booking site that not only caters to sophisticated travelers but is also actually appealing to look at." The Associated Press meanwhile said that their "Mesmerizing photography makes the Web site an exciting destination on its own." It’s Jetsetter.com, and everyone who is anyone in travel is talking about them. The website, launched in 2009, is a members-only site that offers insider information and members-only prices on hotels and travel packages; the site is so exclusive that you need to be invited by a current member to join. Much of the praise has come because of their clean, user-friendly interface and their fresh approach to advertising travel deals, opening "flash sales" for a limited period of time to offer their members affordable luxury getaways at the finest properties all across the world. Aracari on Jetsetter.com Now – cruising to even loftier heights - Jetsetter have teamed up with Aracari to bring the very best of Peru to their members. We have collaborated to create a special 5 day holiday program that will see their members travel to Cusco, the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu over Thanksgiving this November and on President’s day weekend next February. The itinerary, hand crafted specially for the occasion by our expert team, features Machu Picchu, visits to local communities, a textile demonstration and an authentic ceremony with a Shaman amongst other delights. Guests will stay at the lush Willka Tika, the luxurious Inkaterra Machu Picchu and the extravagant Andean Wings hotels along the way giving them a unique and unrivalled view of Peru. Initially working chiefly with hotels, running a full itinerary with all the bells and whistles is a relatively new venture for Jetsetter, and we’re delighted to have paired up to make this fantastic
They’ve been heralded by Condé Nast Traveler as “a travel booking site that not only caters to sophisticated travelers but is also actually appealing to look at.” The Associated Press meanwhile said that their “Mesmerizing photography makes the Web site an exciting destination on its own.” It’s Jetsetter.com, and everyone…
It is with great pleasure that we can announce, Aracari founder and president Marisol Mosquera has been included on Travel + Leisure’s A-list of the World’s Top Travel Agents for 2011. Hurray! Appearing in the September edition of the magazine, Marisol is listed in the Latin America section as the only entry for Peru. Having been awarded the same accolade in 2010, this marks the second year in a row that Aracari have made the T+L grade. With 2011 having been a particularly exciting year for Aracari so far, we’re delighted to have been recognised with this prestigious award in our 15th year of operation as premium luxury travel agents. As well as the exciting celebration trips that we have organised for our 15th Anniversary and the centenary of Machu Picchu’s scientific discovery, we have strived in our endeavours to offer the most innovative, imaginative and authentic tours in Peru and across the Andes region. To this end we've been running up mountains in Cusco, visiting local schools and communities in the Sacred Valley, collaborating with renowned archeologists on Northern Peru's Moche Route, and travelling the world to spread the word amongst other ventures. Travel + Leisure also picked up on our excitement in Lima’s thriving culinary scene, saying that “Mosquera’s go-to restaurants in the city are Mercado, which serves classic Peruvian dishes, and Maido sushi bar.” And we’re equally delighted to say there’s plenty more in the pipeline; we’re currently designing a new range of tours and visits, including an art tour of lima, brand new culinary tours, and a walking tour of Barranco. Keep an eye out!
It is with great pleasure that we can announce, Aracari founder and president Marisol Mosquera has been included on Travel + Leisure’s A-list of the World’s Top Travel Agents for 2011. Hurray! Appearing in the September edition of the magazine, Marisol is listed in the Latin America section as the…
While recently in the Cusco region, I took the opportunity to hike the lodge-to-lodge Ausangate trek. This is an incredible high altitude 5 day trek, staying overnight at authentic and comfortable mountain lodges. Walk along a miraculous trekking route that passes beneath the snow covered peak of Ausangate amidst other wonders. The Lodge-to-Lodge Ausangate Trek combines core Aracari values: authenticity, sustainability and adventure complemented by comfort and good taste. Lodge-to-Lodge Ausangate Trek Day 1: Cusco to Chillca Tambo (4,368 metres asl) Distance: 3.3 km Within about 20 minutes of being picked up from my hotel, it quickly became apparent to our group that the Ausangate lodge to lodge trek would be an out-of-the-ordinary experience. Our guide, Jeremy, jumped into the van where we had been waiting with a bag of coca leaves; “they’re fresh” he told us excitedly, going on to enthusiastically detail the small farm in the high rainforest, from where he had just arrived, and from where he had acquired the leaves. “We’ll need them for the walk” he continued with a wry smile that could not contain his glee. This was quite clearly a guide who was up for an adventure, and his sheer excitement at going to Ausangate with us certainly made us very much more excited about the prospect of what on earth lay ahead of us. Jeremy would later explain why coca is sacred, why it has been such a vital plant to Andean communities for millennia, and how it is a mediator between man, the earth and the gods, but there was no time for that now. We drove out of Cusco on the road to Puno for a couple of hours, all the while hearing Jeremy’s detailed, animated and, at times jovial, insights into the Cusco region, everything from the population and the economy to the awful bout
While recently in the Cusco region, I took the opportunity to hike the lodge-to-lodge Ausangate trek. This is an incredible high altitude 5 day trek, staying overnight at authentic and comfortable mountain lodges. Walk along a miraculous trekking route that passes beneath the snow covered peak of Ausangate amidst other wonders. The…
On July the 24th 1911 Hiram Bingham III first stumbled across Machu Picchu, the first outsider to visit the ruins with the intention of studying them academically and of highlighting their significance to the world. One century to the day and celebrations to mark the centenary of Machu Picchu’s scientific discovery have been wide and varied. The official celebration, under the title “100 years of Machu Picchu in the World”, took place on 7th July with light shows, orchestras and a traditional-style ceremony on top of the ruins, an extravagant fanfare to celebrate the pride of Peru. There has not been any shortage of media coverage to mark the occasion either; popular international press outlets from the New York Times to the LA Times, and from CNN to the BBC have offered their commentary, all vying to give their own take on what makes this marvelous ruin just so special. Aracari Celebrates In true Aracari style, we have taken a rather distinct approach to mark this year of celebration – also our 15th Anniversary. We have hand-crafted a trilogy of escorted trips that are designed to highlight not only the very best aspects of Machu Picchu, but to use this to bring other aspects of Andean history and culture to the fore. The first of these trips was led by world renowned historian Dr. John Hemming in April, called the “Trip of the Century”, and our guests were riveted to hear the first-hand knowledge of the author of the seminal work “The Conquest of the Incas” through a series of detailed lectures, and at Inca sites and historical properties in Lima, Cusco and the Sacred Valley. The second trip, the Mystical History Tour, had been scheduled to incorporate Cusco's fabulous Corpus Christi and Inti Raymi festivals in June as well
On July the 24th 1911 Hiram Bingham III first stumbled across Machu Picchu, the first outsider to visit the ruins with the intention of studying them academically and of highlighting their significance to the world. One century to the day and celebrations to mark the centenary of Machu Picchu’s scientific…