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| Wiñay Wayna (forever young) |
We had experiences with two guided tours arranged by ITEP - a 2 day Machu Picchu hike and visit, and a 1.5 day Lake Titicaca tour. We recommend the 2 day trip over the 4 day for the simple fact that with the 2 day, you will get some great pictures of Machu Picchu from the scenic overlook Sun Gate in the afternoon, when most of the visitors have left. When you visit in the morning Machu Picchu is full of hordes of tourists. We shopped around quite a lot for our tours and ITEP was very economical compared to the alternatives, especially when you factor in the high quality of the experience and their communication.
I must salute Edgar, a coordinator at the ITEP office in Peru. He was extremely responsive and answered our many questions while we planned the trip. It was great being able to chat with him via the ITEP website - super available and helpful. Once we were in Peru we were able to chat with him on Whatsapp. He even met us at the Cuzco airport to give us our Machu Picchu tickets and arranged for our guide to meet us at our hostel the day before our hike. Thank you Edgar! Instead of beginning the 2 day Machi Picchu trip in Cuzco, we started in Ollantaytambo (a town 90 minutes away), so we rode on a train to meet our guide at the KM 104 marker – a fairly common approach. ITEP (Edgar) was flexible and supportive in arranging this for us.
Our guide for the 2 day Machu Picchu trip, Carmen, was great! She spoke English well and was very pleasant. Carmen went above and beyond and queued for us at 3AM to ensure we got an early bus ride up to Machu Picchu. That was truly incredible! We were the only two people on the trip, so it was a private guide experience.
The hike itself was fairly strenuous. We are fit and in our thirties and found it challenging, although we also saw many older and less fit people along the trail. Lots of uneven steps up. The lunch provided was delicious – chicken fried rice. Make sure to load up on insect repellant; even though I put some on, I got a few bites and with Zika… We actually found the ruins of along the way – WiñayWayna, to be more spectacular than Machu Picchu itself.
ITEP arranged for a nice hotel for us in Aguas Caliente. It was a lot better than I expected, with a comfortable room and a nice buffet breakfast. Regarding breakfast – if you intend to do this 2 day trip you will be going up to Machu Picchu very early, before the breakfast is served. The fellow setting up breakfast at 4:00 AM was nice enough to let me have some before the official serving time, but you may want to make other arrangements.
ITEP also arranged a wonderful tour around Lake Titicaca where we stayed in the home of a Peruvian family on a somewhat remote island. We actually enjoyed this more than the Machu Picchu trip! My only criticism is that the tour group we were on was Spanish speaking, and the guide’s English wasn’t very good. While he tried to give bilingual explanations of what we were seeing, it wasn’t sufficient. The floating reed islands are really fascinating and we enjoyed the intimacy of staying in a family’s home on the island. They didn’t speak English either, but I speak a little Spanish and the other tourist staying with us was bilingual; it was fine. Also, we’ve never seen so many stars; it was great being away from light pollution.
Review by: Fives Fivenson
Country: USA
Tour: Short Inca Trail to Machu Picchu in 2 days and Lake Titicaca Tour in 2 days
Departure: September 14th, 2017
Guide: Carmen
