Travel doesn’t often allow that luxury, but this way of experiencing Peru offers up distinctive experiences every day.

Carol Cumes is the guiding force, passionate about sharing the spirituality she has discovered since first visiting Peru in 1984. Born in South Africa, she lived in America for 20 years, built a personal home and then a guesthouse in this Sacred Valley and now shares her time in all three countries.

My friends and I found her at home in Willka T’ika during our stay so we strolled the gardens and greenhouse with her, shared meals abundant with fresh fruits, grains and vegetables from her gardens and those nearby and absorbed for ourselves some of her love for the Quechua people.

Admiration for the ancient ways of the Andean people who preceded the Inca and survived the Spanish invasion is easier to develop when you live among the people instead of changing hotels every night or two.

Cumes calls her coordinated tour a “magical journey.” With seamless guidance from the moment we left the Cusco airport until heading back there 10 days later, my friends and I witnessed ancient traditions in practice today and accepted invitations to participate in many of them, or contented ourselves to watch from a distance.

We met local people whose daily walk reflects centuries of family ways of cooking and weaving, farming and healing.

I don’t know if all that is magic, but it certainly was personal. We have names to go with faces, church services and healing ceremonies to recall and school supplies and warm clothes to send to children whose mountain classrooms we visited.

That’s a filter for me to better understand the speculation wrapped around Machu Picchu, and the other historic sacred sites to visit here—places with musical names including Saksaywaman and Ollantaytampu.

Another benefit of staying awhile instead of rushing through on a motor coach tour is that pronouncing these names-of-many-syllables gets a little easier with time.

“Can you feel it?” That’s the important question and concept in these places but it’s impossible to grasp hurrying through any of them. Feel what?

Historians, scientists, scholars, mystics, astronomers and average every-day people report sensing energies or spirituality, cosmic forces or artistic inspiration at Machu Picchu and other sites.

On our Magical Journey approach we took the time every day in these places to slow down and participate in an ancient tradition of welcome or blessing or appreciation. Urubamba resident Gabriella Meneses, a serious student of sacred traditions in Peru,

opened doors for us to do these things, or to meet the healers or local spiritual leaders who could.

She’s the Willka T’ika professional tour guide who reflects Carol Cumes’ love and respect for the people of Peru. Couple being in these places with Gaby’s daily teaching, superb English, translation of Quechua and Spanish-speaking local people and profound wonderment about just what Inca knowledge might have once existed --- and this vacation sets new standards for ways to experience the world.

Sounds a little heavy when I’ve been telling the tales, but great fun and unlimited delight really filled our days. Superb strenuous hikes, ample massage and healing therapies, fabulous food, lovely accommodations, abundant hot tea steeped with fresh herbs, plenty of filtered water (no drinking from the faucet here) and a lot of early to bed and early to rise.