Peru's Soul: 12-Day Transformative Machu Picchu Journey

Fist off- if you think this trip is a part of a tour group, it is not. If you are not comfortable being on your own most of the time with absolutely no English translators (except on each specific site tour) this is not the trip for you 2nd- if you are the kind of person that likes to know your schedule of where to go at what time and with tickets in-hand well ahead of time (like at least 24 hours before each day), then this trip is not for you 3rd - If you like being at the hands of a 3rd party who's sole job is to book your bus/train tickets and various tours for you- then provide the logistics of time/place/tickets just prior to you doing anything for that day. Or if you like working person-to-person with the tour companies to get money back for failed tours or tour guides that leave without you for no reason. Skip this one Basically- skip this tour and go to the next one. My wife and I travel A LOT. We typically have a busy schedule when we travel (ie lots of tours - at least 1 per day- over various countries). This itinerary is too aggressive. We were at the hands of public transportation the whole time (think Greyhound bus for many of the days). The trip from Lima to Nazca was 9 hours! 9!!! Traffic wll get you, construction will get you- oh, and since we didn't know it was going to be 9 hours, we didn't pack anything more than snacks. We left too early for breakfast (snack 1) and didn't have any time for lunch (snack 2). So basically 5:30 AM - 4:30 PM on route to the bus or on the bus. Not at all fun The most frustrating part of the bus\air travel is that most of the time either the person who was supposed to pick us up showed up late with no signs (they just walked around looking for us and asking if I was John) or they simply didn't show up. We walked to our hotels in Nazca and in Aqua Cliente, we almost scheduled alternative transportation on our flight in to Lima (40 min late) and Puno-to-Cusco (40 min late). Pretty frustrating when no one is available to be your translator to find out what is going on. I spent about $100 in phone/data plan communicating to this travel company trying to determine what was going on, where people were, refunds on tours that either didn't happen or the tour guide left without us. The 3-star hotels are 3-star for Peru, not for US/CA. If you are from US or CA or even EU- drop the star rating by 1 star. The hotels were nice overall, but the noise level in all of them was an issue. The service at the one in Cusco was absolutely horrific (the one in Lima was superb- but the sheets were a bit damp due to very high humidity). Basically, the sites were awesome- you should see them. But for THIS tour group there was far too much bad that far outweighed the good. I don't know what trip the other folks who rated this trip were on, but they were NOT on this one if it is above 3 stars. I invite you to look at my other ratings I have done on Trip Advisor. I rarely, if ever, have a long and ranting bad experience. I hope this tells you something about this specific tour- don't do it. The one positive thing is that the majority of the time, the tour group would answer your phone or texts. They met with us in Cusco to clear up some confusion (of where there was a ton of it each day).

<p>This is a really good package tour. But our tour started a bit roughly, we do not know if the driver is going to pick us up at the airport or a day later at the hotel. There is no one accompany you on the tour except some sites that have guides, and most of the time English does not work. The agenda of the tour I'm on is no as described on the website, the days have been re-arranged. But the overall experience is wonderful!</p>

<p>This tour has been FANTASTIC!!! Exceeded expectations many times over. Lenin, the organizer is a great, down to earth and very service oriented person. What I liked the most: Machu Picchu top of the top, Nazca lines fantastic, Cuzco city tour incredible. Hotels all clean. And three stars, busses ok</p>

<p>Superb. Very busy and full on ... Very well organised.</p>

<p>I would highly recommend this tour for anybody that wants their holiday in Peru planned and arranged for them. We had a few alterations to the original plan sent to us, but it didn't affect any sights or tours that were indicated on the original plan. There is lots of travelling involved and many early starts! but both me and my son thoroughly enjoyed our time in Peru.</p>

<p>The itinerary was poorly executed. For example, Day9: After breakfast, very early in the morning, you'll head to...for a guided tours of..., Then, you'll head to Cusco. It was huge surprise to found that we will be putting into an over-night bus from puno to cusco. We were comforted by our agent that it will not be too bad with an overnight sleeper ride. Only in the puno bus check in, we found that our Sleeper ticket was actually sitting seat! We try to call our travel agent, who is supposed to be available if we have any question. Neither the local puno agent nor Cusco Agent picked up the phone. The worst moment was when we finally arrive cusco 4:30AM, the person who is supposed to pick us up in the bus station did NOT show-up, leaving us there sick, tired, and cannot speak a word of Spanish...</p>