Travel Review: Peru Tour, Lima, Cusco, Aguas Calientes, Parque de la Reserva, Machu Picchu, Pisac Market, Inca Trail

  The trip was a success but not entirely as expected.   We got to see everything we wanted in Peru and were amazed at the beautiful country.  It was more active than expected (my husband has a bad hip and suffered greatly) from the itinerary, but we were happy to have been able to see what we did.  We also saw a lot of ruins and learned a lot regarding the Inca!  The guides appeared knowledgeable of the Inca culture, but when they didn't have an answer to a question they fumbled or incorrectly stated facts as opposed to saying they were unsure.  Also appeared very biased, but as expected if they are from the area.  By the end of each tour, we felt that the tour guides were more interested in talking than letting us see the sights (especially Machu Picchu).  Do feel it was a definitive positive in having locals do tours though as they should have better knowledge of it.

  Of particular pleasure was being able to actually plan an itinerary or list everything that WE wanted to do and then being able to do that with even some additional suggestions from the travel agent.  Travelers don't always know options that are nearby so it certainly helped to have attraction suggestions when you indicate you want to "tour the city."  Downfall is sometimes the agent planning your trip is definitely not local--like when we were told we could not do a tour of Lima when we had a 9 hour layover because the city was 2 hours away from the airport.  It wasn't -- we had to rent a hotel room out of our pocket and it was 10 miles away or 40-45 minute drive.

  Definite downfall is lack of communication--some delay in email, but serious issues in country.  Two times we were picked up 30 minutes late from airports and nearly stranded.  This is extremely frightening and a horrible introduction to the company.  When attempted to call the agency  there was no answer, or it went to a voice message in Spanish (that does no good for English travelers). 

  Hotel suggestions were amazing!  We stayed at an old mansion and monastery.  They did not list all the amenities (ex: fitness area) unfortunately and we were not able to research the area so we did not know what we were getting ourselves into until we got there.  Most everything is available and accessible at the hotels.  Positive is that they were beautiful because they had history and were old; Negative is that they were old and not built sound-proof.  We were up quite a few nights because of noisy guests and even multiple calls to the front desk did not appear to fix this.  One hotel had this problem and extremely rude customer service in the restaurant so we asked to stay anywhere else in Cusco.  But they ended up more than making up for it by giving us a suite with Jacuzzi and complementary dessert!