Montage Hotels and Resorts Winter 2019 Life Well Lived Magazine

Elevated Journey

In Peru’s Sacred Valley, adventure travel— and altitude-inspired cuisine—soar to new heights.

TEXT AND PHOTOS BY JUSTINE AMODEO

In the third season of “Chef’s Table,” the Netflix series offering epicureans a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the kitchens of the world’s most celebrated chefs, Virgilio Martinez, the passionate chef/owner of Peru’s much lauded Central and Mil, is describing his first visit to Moray, an ancient food lab in the Sacred Valley of the Andes. There, struck by the terraced concentric circles that were once an Incan experimental farm, he explains how he came to discover the atmospheric nature of food. “People in the Andes have another way to see life,” he explains of his one week visit to the high plateaus of his native land. “They see the world in levels and altitudes, in a vertical way. That was it for me. It changed the way I was thinking about food.” When he returned to Lima, he reinvented his Central menu based on the biodiversity of different altitudes, so that diners could “feel all the parts of Peru.” Since then, Central has consistently been considered one of the top 10 restaurants in the world.

But his fascination with Moray did not end and, a decade later, in 2018, he opened the 20-seat, tasting-only restaurant Mil in a former vicuña (a high-end relative of the llama) breeding center overlooking the terraces. Within a year, Mil was named one of the best restaurants in the world by a collaboration between Travel + Leisure and Food & Wine, and if you’re traveling to the Sacred Valley, it’s worth making the trek to try Mil’s eightcourse tasting menu serving the “ancestral cuisines” of the Andes.

Or, if you really want an immersive experience that involves Martinez’s food and the land that inspired it, check in to Explora Valle Sagrado, a luxurious, all-inclusive adventure lodge that appears to be growing out of fertile fields of corn and quinoa in the remote foothills of the Peruvian Andes: In the summer of 2019, the lodge and the chef partnered so that guests could experience Martinez’s obscure Andean ingredients presented in the restaurant as works of art almost too beautiful to eat.

Explora’s partnership with Martinez makes complete sense. Since it opened in 2017 as one of Peru’s most experiential properties, Explora has widened its reputation (it has three other properties, all in remote destinations in Chile) as a high-end base camp for travelers seeking to connect with the ancient land and its culture.

EXPLORING THE SACRED VALLEY Half-day or full-day excursions are led by Explora’s expert guides with deep knowledge of the local Quechua culture. The day we arrived, our guide explained the history of the Inca Empire, which before the Spaniards arrived, spanned over 2,000 miles and brought together 10 million people under the same sacred theocracy. The capital of this powerful empire was the city of Cusco, and from the majestic mountain landscapes and fertile valleys that surrounded it, the Sacred Valley was chosen by the Incas to build some of their most important architectural works, thousands of miles of travel paths connecting the vast territory and complex irrigation terraces built with stone walls, pipelines and aquaducts at the mountains slopes that are still used for growing food.

This is why it was the perfect location to build Explora Valle Sagrado, with over 30 full-day or half-day expertly guided excursions to many of these sites, including everything from hikes and bike rides through the landscape of mountains, potato fields and Incan ruins, to cultural outings in Cusco and overland adventures. But most travelers brave the extreme altitude of Peru’s Sacred Valley for one reason: to visit Machu Picchu, once the heart of the Inca Empire and one of the most impressive architectural feats of their civilization, as well as one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

We chose to visit Machu Picchu for an all-day

expedition to Inti Punku (or the “Sun Gate”), the gateway through which travelers who hike the Inca Trail enter the historical sanctuary. The itinerary begins early in the morning at the Ollantaytambo rail station, where a glassed-in train runs along the banks of the picturesque Urubamba River to the town of Aguas Calientes. From there, a bus swerves along a curvy mountain road to deliver you to the entrance to Machu Picchu, where preservation initiatives include new restrictions on the number of visitors entering the sacred site (reservations are now required). This is the starting point of the 1.2-mile climb to the Sun Gate, where the crowds and the air are definitely much thinner, the sweeping views of the historic site are stunning as the clouds move quickly over the green hills and the sky is sporadically filled with thunder and lightning. Because this is the cloud forest in the dry season (Peru has two seasons, a dry season and a rainy season), bursts of rain are most welcome in the humid afternoon. After eating a light lunch at the top, the much faster trek down leads to ancient Incan structures, where llamas graze in the grasslands and the ruins can be explored.

In sharp contrast to the challenging hikes and jaw-dropping views of lakes and mountains are the weaving villages that dot the landscape. Peru’s sustainable use practices, as well as the incorporation of traditional weaving techniques, have drawn

high-end fashion designers to the country, which is home to 80% of the world’s population of alpaca. Brands such as Stella McCartney, Ulla Johnson and Isabel Marant have incorporated the eco-friendly alpaca—the animals are not harmed during the shearing process—into their collections using Peruvian workers to do the hand-knitting.

Chinchero is believed to be the birthplace of the Sacred Valley’s textile craftsmanship and an excursion to Cuper Bajo allows visitors to learn firshand about how natural dyes are used to create the colorful alpaca, baby alpaca and vicuña wool textiles woven by local artisans with backstrap loom techniques. You can witness a demonstration of how the women weave by throwing the yarn back and worth and how natural dyes are created—including watching one of the weavers smash a parasite from a cactus in her palm, mix the bloody red guts with lime juice and a crystal and use it to dye wool and redden her cheeks—and then buy woven items at dirt-cheap prices right from the collective. “These women,” explains our guide, “they can walk, they can dance, they can kiss their husbands while they spin the yarn. And depending on how they are feeling in the day, they use happy colors, or dark colors when they are sad.” We purchase some happy bright red and fuschia scarves, rugs and handbags, and are on our way.

An excursion to Moray and Salinas de Maras is also not to be missed. The ancient Maras salt mines are one of the few sites in the world to extract naturally pink salt and this exploration takes travelers through the open-air salt pools dug into the mountainside where salt in shades of white and pink are all fed from an underground sea of salty water deep within the mountains. Thousands of shallow pools filled with salt water eventually evaporate and leave behind the crystallized salt, a process that has been practiced for more than 500 years. On the exit road, stalls sell the various salts including a smoked pink bath salt that smells like the aftermath of a smoldering backyard barbecue.

Nearby, the mines are the circular terraces of Moray, one of the best-preserved archaeological sites in the valley and the spot that inspired Martinez’s Mil and his menu in Lima’s Central. A hike down the backside of the mountain offers panoramic views of the grass-covered, terraced Incan ruins, at one time a large-scale agricultural experiment. Soil tested from the area shows it was brought in from other areas, creating a series of microclimates that match many of the varied conditions across the Incan empire. Scientists have determined that the rings were probably used as test beds to grow crops.

ENHANCING THE SENSES During a visit to the living Inca town of Ollantaytambo, we inquire about the mysterious

red plastic flags hanging outside of homes on sticks. This is a signal that the families inside are producing and selling Chicha—Peru's local, indigenous sour beer made from fermented corn—in unused rooms or corners of their patios. In these unlicensed Chicherias, you can get a big glass for as little as 1 sol, which is about 30 cents. After we try regular and strawberry chica (definitely an acquired taste), we pass through the town’s main gate and over cobblestone streets to get to the village, where we climb the steep steps to the archeological site to see its terraces, the ceremonial center and the Royal building. Here, alpaca roam the grounds, inspiring selfies and a spontaneous group yoga pose.

The week we are there, a special Explora wellness experience is being led by Kathleen Nitting, a Vedic educator certified by the Chopra Center for Well Being, that fuses yoga, meditation and ayurveda. The wellness experience is designed for travelers to add an extra layer of healing to their Explora adventure by connecting with the natural elements and discovering the culture of Peru and its reverence for the land. Mornings began with meditation and/or yoga with sun salutations around the colonial-style spa’s swimming pool, part of the historic Pumacahua Bath House once occupied by Inca Mateo Pumacahau, a hero of the Peruvian Independence. The 17th-century, fresco-walled colonial house offers a sauna, steam bath, pool, Jacuzzis and a well curated spa menu of massages, reflexology, Reiki and chakra balancing