Similar to the word Kuska, vicuñas are special in my eyes for many reasons, especially for Kuska Trips.

In 2016, during my first trip to Peru, my life changed forever. I had heard so much about Peru from the time I was a child, but nothing compared to being there in person. One experience in particular that stood out to me was the day before I climbed Machu Picchu for the first time, I met an animal I never even knew existed, the vicuña. I learned this lesser-known cousin to the llama is sacred and only lives naturally in the high sierras of the Andes mountains. Their wool is considered to be the finest of any known animal, about twice as fine as Cashmere. Their coats grow very slowly and can take as long as three years to grow back after being sheared. This is the animal found on the national flag of Peru. This trip was the week before I would embark on one of the greatest journeys of my life, pursuing a world class MBA alongside my family. I thought I knew so much about Peru. All it took was a few days of being there to realize one of the main animals was something I had never heard of. Similarly, this represented my desire to be humble in my learning in my graduate studies and to seek experiential learning opportunities. This was an inflection point in life and the beginning of a transition.

In 2019 I convinced 3 of my 4 siblings to go to Peru along with my mom and dad. This was literally the trip of a lifetime as I learned through my mom’s eyes what life was like for her growing up in addition to showing her Machu Picchu for the first time, a tourist experience her family never was able to afford growing up. I was just over a year into a new career post-MBA and while there were positives, I was feeling that a different, riskier path was calling me. On this trip, I visited the carniceria (butcher shop) my abuelita (grandmother) had started nearly 60 years prior with the vision and dream of sending her three children to the United States to pursue a university education. At the time, extended family was still operating the carniceria. That business was still supporting family (as a side note, they did ultimately sell it later in 2019). While visiting what felt like hallowed ground with my mom and the rest of my family, in that moment I knew with great clarity it was time to pursue my own entrepreneurial path in order to achieve the vision and dreams I hold with my wife for our posterity. This was the only trip I ever took with my mom to Peru as she was diagnosed with terminal cancer seven months later. This trip represented the start of yet another transition in life.

In 2022 the pandemic was finally starting to let up. Just the year before, I had finally started on my entrepreneurial path serving the autism community, blending my passion for business and helping others. I had partnered with an individual who had been a big blessing in financing the venture as well as sharing insights to the field. The beginning of 2022 was riddled with cash shortfalls for our not yet one year old startup. Travel seemed unwise financially. Life was immensely stressful. Yet I felt compelled to return to Peru with my dad and brother on a family history focused trip. My mom had been gone for a little over a year by this point. She told me that the small mountain village where her grandparents grew up, Pampachacra, was so remote and difficult to access, she only visited once in her life and it included riding a donkey for the better part of a day for the last leg of the journey when she was a kid. I felt drawn to experience it myself. Our gracious hosts were extended family we had met in 2019. From Arequipa, where they lived and where the nearest airport is, we traveled 8 hours in a van. At one point the single lane highway (newly paved as of 2018!) wound around mountain cliffs with crosses hand staked into the ground at sharp turns to remember the fallen travelers of that same road. I tried my best to fall asleep. It was on this trip while traveling on a highway at about 14,000 ft elevation that I saw a herd of dozens of wild vicuña. It was as if I was being rewarded for traveling to higher heights and taking new risks. When we finally arrived to Pampachacra I felt like my ancestors from the other side were embracing me. Only about 40 people live there. There are many mud brick homes built around a small town square with fields slightly lower on the mountain. We stopped a few passersby and I couldn’t help but notice how much everyone looked like pictures of my extended family. Their last names were all the same names found in our family tree. One individual we stopped turned out to be a cousin to my grandma. When she learned who we were and how far we’d traveled, she broke down in tears, sharing how she felt the world had forgotten about her and their small community. She later pulled my brother and I aside to her home to share that she had been praying for help with her family and felt our visit was an answer to her prayer to boost her morale amidst hardships. I felt I was able to understand my grandparents in a way I never had before as I witnessed what their life might have been like just two generations prior. I also found something I wasn’t aware I needed until there, additional healing from the passing of my mom. Being there with family, visiting the gravestone of her grandma and other relatives was soul-filling in a beautiful way. This trip, like starting my business, was an immense leap of faith. I wanted to see how the business would do without me every day. Miraculously, several held up payments totalling enough to cover over two payrolls (a very significant amount at the time!) from insurance companies all hit our bank account while I was in Peru. This trip signified that the business, albeit new and seemingly fragile, was destined to grow and I felt assurance about going deeper. Upon my return my partner accepted a proposal to purchase equity to become the majority owner. We never dealt with cash issues the rest of the year. We also decided to rebrand to Kuska Autism Services. As with the previous trips, this one marked another large transition in life for me.

As a side note, the second half of this trip included meeting a group of individuals from the U.S. to tour key cultural sites in Cusco and Lima in preparation for our 2024 summer trip.

At the end of 2022, I met a woman who owns a clinic in Arequipa that serves neurodivergent children, including those with autism. We identified six autistic children in Arequipa and my company got to sponsor Christmas packages filled with a variety of sensory toys for each. In 2023, I was blessed to take my clinical director and her husband (among others) to visit this clinic and learn more about access to services for the autism community in Peru. Just a few months before the trip we extended ourselves and opened our first physical location with a clinic in Draper, Utah. This was such a massive milestone for our growth and also very scary economically as it added significant overhead. By this time the name Kuska and our logo with the two vicuñas (they form an abstract K for Kuska in case you’re curious) was part of our identity. During this trip we were able to visit a special animal reserve in the Sacred Valley that had a few vicuñas there. I got to pet one and take a picture while feeding it. I felt once again reassurance that I was on the right path and my vicuña friends were cheering me on.

As you can see, vicuñas are not only special to the people of Peru, but also to me personally. I cannot wait to share the experience of seeing a vicuña for the first time with those who travel with us this summer!