Thanks to everyone who posts on the board for providing information. Our trip was much better because of reading your information. Hopefully this can help someone else.

I planned this trip starting from the lowest elevation to the highest, saving Puno and Colca for last. We met people who started in Puno who were having altitude issues so I think this plan works better than most of the standard tours that save Cusco for last.


May 19- Fly to Lima via Miami arrives 4:10 am on American

We used ff miles for the international flights but were still able to use the South American Airpass. The airpass is great since you have total flexibility for changes and an extra baggage allowance that comes in handy late in the trip if you do too much shopping.


May 20 - Lima to Cusco 7:20 am – no timing problem getting this flight. We had breakfast, got some cash from the ATM and still had plenty of time. We chatted with some angry people from our Miami flight that missed their TACA flight and had to buy new LAN seats so don’t plan your connection too tight. Three hours was relaxing with a little downtime.

We stayed at the Hotel Libertador in Cusco our first night since we decided we would not be ready for the drive into the Sacred Valley after traveling all night. The Libertador has a booth at the airport and I was surprised to see someone standing there with our name on a board since we had not arranged a transfer. I don’t know if this was a special service because there was a strike that day or maybe they were hoping to sell us tours. I was a bit suspicious after reading some other posts about shady travel companies offering transfers but we had no problems.

My husband was feeling the altitude when we got to the hotel. He used the hotel oxygen tank offered at check in for a few minutes and felt much better. A note on altitude…we had good success drinking the coca tea offered at the hotels. We really thought it made a difference. My husband bought a small bag of leaves at the street market in Ollantaytambo and thought chewing them helped when we were hiking. We tossed most of the bag at the end of the trip. Totally acceptable in Peru but in at US Customs.

At the Libertador we had a suite in the historic part of the hotel. It was very large with 2 balconies on the street behind the hotel entrance. There was a lot of street noise in the room despite the double doors. I preferred the smaller interior room we had on our second visit.

We went to visit our booking agent for the Inca Trail (Andean Life) to make our final payment and confirm details for the trip. The agent pulled out a map and walked us through the tour. Later while wandering around the Plaza de Armas and the Cathedral there was a parade of sorts. We were told it was student groups from different restaurant schools. Each group did dances in regional costumes. Great fun to watch.

My husband realized he forgot his meds for high blood pressure. This was easier to fix than in the US, we stopped at a pharmacy and got a 14 day supply – no doctor visit or prescription needed.

We had an early dinner at Ciccolina –excellent food and wine. When we returned to the hotel after dinner there was an urgent message from Andean Life. They said there was a fire on the Inca Trail and we would now start the hike at km 106 rather than 104. The trail would be steeper since you cover the same elevation gain in fewer kms. We assumed the fire had just happened since they gave us a detailed review (with their map in hand) earlier in the day at their office. I was a bit annoyed when we learned the fire happened days before our arrival in Cusco. The change would have been easier to understand in person when we were both listening.

May 21- Percy picked us up for our first Sacred Valley tour at 8:30. We read about Percy on Fodors website and we have friends in here in Delaware used him on their trip last year so we felt confident we made a good choice. I was a bit apprehensive about booking with the same person for 3 days but it was perfect. We absolutely loved working with him. He knew everything about the history of the area and we were really comfortable with him. It was like having a friend in Cusco.

We visited Awana Kancha to see the llamas, alpacas, and vicunas. We saw weavers, a demonstration of the dye methods and learned how to spot the natural colors for shopping later in the trip. Next we went to the Pisac ruins. The views on the way were wonderful with Percy explaining everything we saw and stopped for some great photo opportunities. After a tour at Pisac we did a quick stop at the market and decided that it was too touristy for our taste so we continued on for lunch in Urubamba. Percy asked us if we wanted a tourist or local restaurant and we picked local. We sat in a courtyard of a cute little restaurant where the trout was excellent and very reasonable. Next we visited the ruins at Ollantaytambo which were made much more interesting by Percy’s explanations. By now we were very pleased with our decision to spend multiple days with Percy. I can imagine it would have been so much less interesting without someone to explain everything to us. Then we went to the Hotel Pakaritampu. We had a cute room on the top floor. The grounds at the hotel are full of beautiful flowers and everything is very neat and clean. We were a bit tired so we had dinner at the hotel. Everything was good but not exceptional.

I highly recommend Percy if you are looking for a guide. You won’t be disappointed.

PERCY SALAS ALFARO
[email protected]

May 22- 7:45 train to our Inca Trail hike. I don’t know why they say you need to arrive 30 minutes before departure since there is no check in to deal with. 10 to 15 minutes would be more than enough.

Another couple on our train was doing the hike with a guide from Enigma. In hindsight I wished we had booked with a different company. Their guide also seemed more knowledgeable and helpful and was on the train meaning they could send their bags to the hotel in Aguas. I tried to make arrangements with our agent but was told it could not happen. Peru Rail won’t hand bags over to the hotel representatives. The other guide paid the train staff hand the bags to the hotel staff in Aguas. I’m not sure I would do that myself but the guide would see the same staff again.

Anyway, we started the trek at 106 so we did not see the ruins by the river. The trek was a bit shorter but more difficult since the switchbacks were shorter and the elevation gain is the same. The trail we used seemed to be primarily for porters coming down the mountain. It was pretty much straight up to the lodge where the 4 day hikers spend the last night. We arrived at the lodge and walked over to Wayna Wayna. It was great to see the site with only 3 other people there…almost like having the place to yourself. We did not walk over to the waterfalls since our guide said it was a long walk. Later I was told it was 5 minutes. I don’t know which is true but I love waterfalls so I was sad to miss them. We had our picnic at the lodge and continued on to the Sun Gate. That part of the hike was easy until we got to the steps which seemed steep after a long walk. The Sun Gate view was too far away for me to appreciate but it was great to know we were close. Down at the Guardhouse I enjoyed the view much more.

We went to the Sanctuary Lodge where we were spending the night. It is true that the rooms at the lodge are small for the price but they are very comfortable and you are paying for location. The food and the service are perfect. The meals we ate at the hotel were some of the best food I have ever had on a vacation. Almost everything is included in the price which makes things easy. Getting a zero bill after a great meal is kind of fun. Thanks to those who suggested a standard room. The patio rooms all look out onto a public courtyard. We walked in the courtyard but did not have enough time to enjoy a patio. After dinner we walked out in front of the hotel and had our first sighting of the Southern Cross. The stars were excellent just a few steps from the hotel lobby.

May 23- Up early to see the sunrise at MP and get tickets to climb Una Picchu. After looking at photos from both Huayna Picchu and Una Picchu I decided I thought the lower one had better views. My husband was not too excited about either one after the previous day’s hike but he was fine to wait for me. There was no sunrise since it was too cloudy. The guide seemed more disappointed than we were.

After we got our tickets for the hike we did a tour of the site. I was disappointed that I forgot my book since I thought our guide was kind of so so. The Machu Picchu guidebook by Ruth Wright and Alfredo Valencia Zegarra is a must read. After the tour we went back to the hotel for a quick breakfast. This was the reason I paid up for the hotel. It was great to have to option to go back and forth from the site. Then we wandered around MP for a few hours on our own and I did the hike to Una Picchu. A plus on this hike is that you have the trail to yourself. I was happy to find one person at the top to take my photo. She had hiked Huayna Picchu earlier and said she like the view from Una better so I assume I made a good choice. I also liked having someone to chat with on the way down to keep my mind off the view of the big drop. Next we went to the hotel to use the day room for showers and a wonderful three course lunch. Then it was the bus back to the train at 3:55 to Ollantaytambo. It is a short walk back to the Hotel Pakaritampu. This time we went out to dinner at Maya Pata. The food was fine but the service was really slow and the restaurant was really smoky first from the pizza oven then from smokers. It was the only place we saw smoking in a restaurant so it was odd.

May 24- Percy picked us up for our second day of Sacred Valley touring at 8:30. I wanted to make a quick stop at ruins at Ollantaytambo since the light was so much different in the morning. I expected we would take the photos from outside of the site since our ticket was stamped a few days earlier but Percy was able to talk them into letting us in for a few photos. It took some effort since the ticket lady did not want to budge on the issue. After this quick stop we drove to Moray. Some people said they were disappointed but I thought it was interesting to see where they tested crops. Next we went to the Maras Salt Mines where we were lucky enough to see a movie being filmed where they were demonstrating the harvesting techniques. We stopped at the Chinero Sunday Market to see the locals barter. It was interesting to see. We were a bit later than we hoped so there was not much bartering but lots of chicha drinking at the lunch spot. We visited the church and saw a funeral, baptism and town meeting going on all at the same time…excellent stop. Then back to the hotel Libertador and Ciccolina for dinner. After dinner we walked by the Plaza and saw another parade. This time they said it was for a sight of the Virgin. It was my first time seeing a church float out on the street in a parade.

May 25- Percy took us for a tour of Sacsayhuaman, Quenko, Pucapucara, and Tambomachay. It was great to have a driver for these sites and have them explained to us by someone who knew the history. I bet they all look like stone piles without an explanation. We also stopped at an “outlet store” that sold lots of alpaca stuff where they explained how to spot baby alpaca pieces. It was fun for the rest of the trip in the shops betting on what was real and what was not real. In the afternoon we visited the Qoricancha (temple of the Sun) on our own and had dinner at the MAP Café. Both the food and the service were excellent. It is more expensive than Ciccolina but we liked the food better and it was more relaxing too.

May 26- Straight to the Cusco airport for a 7:45 flight to Puno. Allways travel picked us up at airport and drove us through Juliaca on our way to tour Sillustani. Juliaca does not look like a place for tourists to spend much time. Our guide was Johnny (I’m sure he spells it differently) is from Amantani Island which was interesting to hear about. He is a new guide this year but we found him very interesting. The funeral towers were interesting to see and we were happy to have someone to explain everything to us. The differences in the towers from different time periods were interesting and he told us a great story about local students who could not rebuild the towers that were struck by lighting even with current technology. On the way to Puno we visited a farm in the area and met a family who showed us their home, types of food they eat, how they grind flour and tend their garden.

We had a suite with a great view at the Libertador and spent enough time in the room to enjoy it. Request a room facing away from Puno for the best view. The Libertador is not great to look at but if you are in it you don’t see it. After lunch, we visited one smaller Uros island and the main island. The history is interesting and the people were very welcoming.

After dinner our tour guide from Peru Adventure Tours came to the hotel. She was few minutes late and out of breath. Her company had sent her to the wrong hotel so she had trouble finding us. This was the first of many bad signs about this company. She walked us through the route of our drive and told us our meeting time.


May 27 - Don’t book with Peru Adventure Tours. They are much more expensive than other companies and they don’t deliver on the promised extras in the tour. The company and the guide were disorganized and they lack time management skills. They promised much more than could reasonably be fit into a day. Their tour used a non-standard route which I would not recommend. We did not think the road through Huambo was worth the effort.

Overall the canyon was nice but not worth the trip for me. IMHO the Sacred Valley is much more beautiful and easier to see with more hotels, restaurants, etc. I thought I would prefer Peru Adventure Tours plan more than the standard tour route since we would see more by taking different routes in and out of the canyon but in my opinion very little of the extra we saw deserved the time to see it. We drove by a few more small towns without the time to visit them and we had a nice view of the snow capped volcanoes. However, 2 hours on a horribly bumpy road in the desert with absolutely no other cars around to bail you out if you have a problem and then 2 hours on the scary Pan American Highway with sooo many memorials for the people killed on the road lining up on each side seemed a crazy price to pay for the view. If you want to see the canyon, go the standard route. You might be eating bus fumes up and back but it will be faster and probably safer. Probably more than enough said. If you want to read the detail of the trip here it is otherwise skip to Arequipa below.


May 27 - Our guide and driver from Peru Adventure Tours came as expected at 7:00 for our trip to Colca Canyon. Along the way we stopped (quick photo stops) at the Lagunillas (to see flamingos) and Salina Vicunas Reserve. The tour write up said we would have a delicious snack at the Stone Forest (they did give us Nestle crackers dipped in chocolate just before the photo stop). In Chivay the company said we would have lunch at “the restaurant of our choice”. I thought it meant we picked but they took us to the same tourist buffet as all the big buses. We are picky eaters and we were being really careful after we both had horrible problems on a trip last fall so we paid for our lunch at our hotel which very good and reasonable. We booked the Casa Andina on our own. The room was simple but clean and comfortable.

When we set the pick up time to hike to the pre-Inca ruins the guide pushed us back to 3:00. After driving for ½ an hour I started to question if there would be enough time for a 2 hour hike before sunset. The guide said we would be at the trail in another 20 minutes. Great time management there. I asked if some people do the hike faster but was told it would take 2 hours and sunset was not that far away. So after we started our suggested short walk she said “oh you are faster than I expected, you could have done the other hike in 45 minutes”. She knew we hiked earlier on the trip so I’m not sure why she thought we were slow. Our alternate walk took us to the town square in Yanque and the guide said we would be coming there again at 6 the next morning to spend an hour watching the local school children dance. There was no mention of this in the trip plan and I was more interested in seeing the villages along the canyon. I told her we did not want to see the dance and after a few language confusions finally got the point across. She kept insisting the children had to dance that early so they could go to school. It was difficult to get her to understand it was not a timing issue but what we preferred to see.

Next our schedule was for 2 hours at the hot springs but I just wanted to get away from the guide for the rest of the night so we skipped that (the timing would not have worked anyway). Way too much planned for that day.

Our hotel made us a dinner reservation at Kantua but the restaurant did not open that night for some reason so we ate at another restaurant down the street. Odd that they would insist on a reservation but not open. We visited the planetarium at the Casa Andina that evening which was kind of fun but there was too much light outside to really enjoy the stars. The viewing was better at the Sanctuary Lodge. Another traveler at the Planetarium said she went to the hot springs and it was just a big swimming pool so it did not sound like we missed anything.

May 28 - 6 am pick to continue the canyon tour. The guide kept talking about how wonderful the towns were on the other side of the canyon and how they had the best churches, etc. but we were not going there. It was a bit confusing to be told how wonderful things were that you could not see. Anyway we stopped at one small town and stopped to see the church. A local ran over to open it up for us. It was very nice since we were there before it opens. There was a man with the trained falcon who perched the bird on my arm for photos. Interesting. Then he put his hat on my head so the bird would perch there. More interesting for others. Next we took a short hike to the Condor Cross. It was a nice path along the canyon up to the place where the birds fly. It was good coming in from below since the better view is from the lower viewpoints. The buses drop people off at the top so it is not crowded down below and he condors fly over your head. Much more fun that way. Then we were supposed to go to Cabanaconde but we were told it would take 30 minutes from the road so they did not encourage we stop. I’m not sure where we lost time since we did not see the dancing and we refused the 2nd hour they offered us at the condor cross. 30 minutes of staring at birds was enough for us. Next we stopped at Huambo for a pit stop before leaving the canyon. The only bathroom in town was at the police station and it bordered on my acceptable range. I have lots of friends who would have run from the building. The guide did not use the bathroom and we did a pit stop along the road...maybe a good move. The police were really friendly and we chatted with them for a few minutes. Going down from the northern end of the canyon we had a great view of the snow capped peaks. The trip agenda said we were going to have a beautiful picnic with a view of the snow capped peaks. I wondered when we would stop but soon we were into the desert area and it was really barren so I kept my mouth shut since I did not want to stop there. Finally after a couple of hours on some of the worst road ever – much worse than the road up to the canyon from Puno, we arrived at the Pan American Highway. The guide told the driver to pull over at the side of the road for our picnic. We parked on a dirt pile at the side of the road. The Pan American Highway was straight ahead (if you have not been there believe me when I say you don’t need to go). On one side was a cow pasture complete with cow dung so we had tons of flies coming in the window. On the other side of the road was the driest desert ever (where the aqueduct had not yet started to work). I suggested this was not the best place and told the guide what the agenda promised. She told me if we were to have the picnic at the volcanoes then she would have needed to bring the table and chairs. I don’t know why that was relevant to the discussion. The driver needed to eat so we enjoyed the cow pasture for a while then stopped at the nastiest truck stop ever to use the bathroom. I could not get near it because of the smell so I decided I could wait or would use the side of the road if necessary. Yeah, I know, I am spoiled but really these places should not been on a tour that cost nearly twice as much as the standard private tours that I looked at before planning this trip. From there it was a very quiet couple of hours on the highway to Arequipa. I tried to explain that my frustration was with the tour company but I’m not sure the guide understood.

In Arequipa we stayed at the Casa Andina Private Collection. We got a nice room with the most comfortable bed of the trip and we set off in search of something to eat since we had only had a few snacks that we brought from the home since breakfast. We found the square and a horrible tourist restaurant that gave us fun ponchos to wear since it was chilling down fast. The food was not great but maybe we got our holiday card photo in our ponchos. We went to a Fodor’s recommended restaurant for dinner, El Meson del Virrey. It was the oddest place. There were a row of restaurants and it did not matter which one you sat in since you could order from any of the menus. I must always remember…Do not eat in a restaurant with a huge menu since the jack of all trades is the master of none. We were tired and I was starting to get sick so we stayed and made the best of a bad meal. We had a good bottle of wine and the waiter was very nice but that is the best thing I can say for this place.

May 29- We had a great tour of the Santa Catalina Convent with one of the guides offered inside. She made everything very interesting. Don’t just walk around by yourself you will understand much more with a guide and you won’t get lost. We walked around to take photos after the tour and got turned around a couple of times. The guide gave us an understanding of the history of both the city and the convent which was great. Then we went to the Juanita museum to see the frozen girl. The guide there was also very good and patient with the group. The movie was interesting coverage of Inca human sacrifice and the recovery of the artifacts.

We took an early evening flight to Lima to connect to our 11:20 pm flight to Miami (3 hours was plenty of time for the connection but I would not have wanted less than that).

We had an excellent trip but I would have preferred more time in Cusco and the Sacred Valley and could have skipped Colca and Arequipa. Of course you don’t know until you have seen everything what will be best.

Thanks for your trip report. Am I missing something? You have two May 27 reports, but neither is about what you did in Puno; seems like it jumps right to the next segment of your trip. Regardless, I enjoyed reading your impressions.

We had only one day in Puno May 26. I separated the 27th so people could easily skip the long detail on Colca if they wanted. I'm sorry if it is confusing.

wow interesting trip report

thanks for posting...lots of detailgood and bad

sounds like you had some bad guides except for Percy

Colca especially they skipped some good stuff...

Yikes - sorry you had those issues to deal with on the second half of your trip. Selfishly, as a recommender of his services, I'm glad Percy was a hit, at least!

Sounds like you got some good hiking in on the trail & at MP. We didn't get to spend enough time there.

Hope your next trip is smooth sailing

Hi Guys:

Very interesting journey through the Peruvian Andes. I am so glad you enjoyed a lot knowing a different culture.

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Great trip report - it takes me back to our time there. Shame about the advertising by the last poster though!

Hello, thanks for the report.

I'm still debating whether I should try to squeeze in a few days in Arequipa and Colca Canyon tour at the end of my trip to Peru next month. Right now my plan is to do Cusco - Inca trail - Machu Picchu - Ollant - Pisac - Puno/Lake Titicaca and then maybe Arequipa. Do you think I should skip Arequipa? Was it amazing to see the condors or was it just too much hype? Thanks.