Wilvette Gonzalez Ortiz
Google
I took a package with my husband for three tours with the Machu Picchu Peru Tours agency to visit the Sacred Valley, Humantay Lake and the Rainbow Mountain. Unfortunately, the experience of arriving at these beautiful places was very poor and I am going to explain in detail why.
ORGANIZATION
On the tour to the Sacred Valley, they took a while to find us because they couldn't find our apartment and then they told us that they were not using the GPS, which would have left them right at the entrance of our apartment. In each stop of the trip, we always took longer than necessary because the guide did not establish a minimum time per stop, we had to tell him to please hurry up the people that were delaying the trip. Anyway, at the last stop the guide suggests we take another bus from the agency that arrived later and left the place first.
For Lake Humantay, the tour guide told us to walk one block to meet him. After finding him, we walked for more than 10 minutes, and he left us waiting at dawn (like 4:00am) in a place where some drunk people came out. We felt unsafe, something that no tourist wants when traveling to an unknown country.
Finally, those trips that included breakfast and lunch did include the drinks but at lunch you had to pay for it. The company wrote to us that it included the food but not the drinks. Another important missed detail.
TRANSPORTATION
When a tourist goes on a tour, I dare to say that 80% of the time is spent on the bus. Therefore, the comfort of the trip is very important. For the entire trip the driver had the windows down and the air conditioning off. The buses only have two moving windows at the front, the other windows are sealed.
Not using the a/c in the mornings didn't affect much because the weather was cold. But after noon the bus was a sauna and with approximately 15 passengers it was abusive not to turn on the a/c for us tourists. We told the driver, the tour guide and the agency and they never acted. This happened on all three tours that we took.
The air ducts were full of dust. With the windows down and the air not circulating, we were swallowing dirt ALL the way. We were coughing, sneezing and when we got to the room our nose and throat were sore. We wrote to the agency and the response was that this is normal in Cusco. However, they never took action to roll up the windows, turn on the a/c, and recirculate the cabin’s air.
I hope the agency will act and fix or readjust this problem. If not, my tourist friend who reads me, look for another agency and ensure all these details.
