Aside from the general taste/aroma similarity with the Peru ligero, here is my logic regarding Machu Picchu Havana and Vuelta Abajo.
In the 1920s, tobacco grown in the Vuelta Abajo of Cuba was not particularly well controlled genetically. So there were a host of "Vuelta Abajo" variations. The one being propagated by Northwood Seeds, which was obtained by
@Jitterbugdude from ARS-GRIN, was originally collected from Cuba in the 1920s. It produced (in my growing and the growing of
@Jitterbugdude) what we generally recognize as "Havana" cigar tobacco today. And its upper leaf kilns to a gorgeous maduro.
Havana tobacco was likely introduced to growers in Peru during that same time period, and is likely what was growing on the slopes near Machu Picchu in the mid 1930s, when Raymond Stadelman collected for the USDA the seed now identified as Machu Picchu Havana.
So we have a lot of coincidences and a lot of unaccounted for variables. But those two varieties are as close to the WLT Peru ligero as any of the 100+ tobacco varieties I have grown.
Bob