NONESUCH EXPEDITIONS   FOUNDED IN 1962
  
 
 
 
Nicholas Asheshov

Nicholas Asheshov is a writer and journalist best known for his sharp eyed reporting on business in Peru. But there are other sides to his work. He can look back to an event filled life and many scoops. At the beginning of the 1960's when he was working as a writer for the Peruvian Times then a weekly magazine published in Lima Nick made the first reported ascent of the Pichari river. It was an epic journey that led him into the uncharted northern zone of the Vilcabamba mountains. Four years later and he was reporting for London's Daily Sketch and getting the first pictures of British yachtsman Alec Rose, rounding Cape Horn. In 1972 also for the Peruvian Times he made the first personal interview with Juliana Koepcke the seventeen year old who fell from the sky after an Electra passenger aircraft broke up in a storm. And in 1980 he was on the spot when Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated in El Salvador. By then Nick was well-known to editors around the world and his scoop went global. Nick's career did not stop there and he edited a news magazine for many years before settling in the Sacred Valley of the Incas only fifty straight-line kilometres from Machu Picchu. For more about his life and fascination with the Inca story go to his own website - just look for Nicholas Asheshov. Here, Nick is talking with Marion Morrison

 

Machu Picchu in the early 1960's was reached from Cusco by a railway that passed directly below the ruins and continued down the valley to a small town, the focal point of a rich valley. The valley farms produced for Cusco and life for the workers was simple.

The area became the focal point for political unrest and a small armed guerrilla uprising.The railway was known as the Ferrocarril Santa Ana and was serviced by fine steam locomotives. The entry to Machu Picchu was simply marked with a sign saying 'welcome'. The picture on the far right was taken in 1964.

In 1963 Nick Asheshov made the first recorded ascent of the Pichari river leading to an exploration of the northern zone of the Vilcabamba mountains.The story was published in the Peruvian Times in seven parts MORE

Nick's comments on Machu Picchu...MORE

 

 
Map of the Pichari river and northern Vilcabamba courtesy Peruvian Times 1965 MAP
In January 1972 Nick Asheshov as a friend of the Koepcke family made the first personal interview with seventeen year old Juliane who had just survived a fall from the sky when an aircraft broke up over the Amazon forest of eastern Peru. The accident occured on Christmas Eve 1971 and Juliane Koepcke made world headlines because not only did she survive the fall but also nine days alone in the jungle as she struggled to safety MORE
  
Editor: Tony Morrison 
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