Peru: Sacred Valley and Incan Cities Meets Thread

[danv3]

Wow, I'm surprised they are going with only 11. I called today and I think the May trip only has a few more than that.

Frankly I'm kind of surprised too. We're two weeks out so I'm assuming they won't cancel at this late date!

 

[Bobo912]

Frankly I'm kind of surprised too. We're two weeks out so I'm assuming they won't cancel at this late date!

We did the Peru trip in March of 2013 and there were 44 guests. It was too many by far. You are lucky to have a smaller group.

 

[AdamEfimoff]

Did anyone who is fat go to peru and like it?

 

[DCPhotoGal]

We have switched to the June 30 trip.

 

[AdamEfimoff]

Did anyone who is fat go to peru and like it?

I just feel you need to be skinny

 

[danv3]

So I am just back from Peru. I'm not planning a formal trip report or anything like that, but I will share a couple of comments.

We did travel with only 11 guests, and we still had two guides, Zoe and Rudy, who were awesome. Of our eleven, nine were repeat guests. We loved the small group! The trip overall was great as you would expect. I did want to share a couple of unique points that may be of use to others (or maybe these things only happen to me!)

If your transfer to the Lima airport is only 3.5 hours from your departure time, ask the guides if it can be moved up. Our flight left at 10:05pm, and we were picked up at the JW Marriott at 6:30pm. Given the extreme traffic in Lima, we did not arrive at the airport until 8:00pm and then still had to wait in a long line to check bags and get through security. We made it, but we were near the cutoff for the luggage. Leaving at 6:00, if not 5:30, would have saved a lot of stress. For what it's worth, the airlines recommend you arrive at Lima 3 hours before departure.

When you complete your customs form returning to the US, be very careful about how you answer the question as to whether you've spent time close to livestock. Based on the visit to the Awana Kancha camelid center, I answered yes (as we had in fact been close to, fed, and petted, llamas and alpacas). This was not the answer that the customs folks wanted to hear. We had our passports temporarily seized and had to go through a couple of extra rounds of screening, and then had to have our shoes "sanitized" before we were cleared and got our passports back. So, while I wouldn't advocate lying on the customs form, you should be aware that if you answer that question in the affirmative, you may have a less-than-enjoyable customs experience. Honestly, I figured my answer would be pretty common for people coming from Peru, but the first customs guy looked at me like I had three heads when I said I petted a llama. He said "Oh...you shouldn't have done that" which at first I thought was a joke, but quickly learned was not. Anyway, just thought some might be interested in that experience.

 

[acndis]

Danv,

Thanks! This was so helpful! We go in December. So far only 12 booked. It's nic to hear it went well with 11. What airline did you fly? I got an amazing fare on Avianca but I am a bit nervous about them.

Did you do anything in Lima on your own? We are thinking about a culinary tour.

Thanks,

Cindy

 

[danv3]

We flew American Airlines into Lima, so I can't really comment on the Peruvian/South American companies. Our luggage didn't make our connection into Lima (despite hours of delay, the bags were mysteriously left in Miami), so I also wasn't really thrilled with American! Our internal flights were on LAN and they were fine, but we had no control over those selections.

We had two extra days in Lima. We bought a pre-stay night and arrived late on "Day 0" if you go by AbD's counting of the days. That way, on Day 1, while most everyone else was arriving really late at night, we had a day to explore Lima. (The extra day was really helpful with our luggage arriving 24 hours after us...had we come on Day 1 like most in our group, it would have taken longer for our luggage to catch up to us at the Sol Y Luna) Also, most guests left late on Day 8 (the day of the farewell lunch) but we stayed the night (included in the package) and instead left late on Day 9 (giving us a second day in Lima).

On both of the extra days, we took tours through a guide named Jhony Quinones. If you google "Jhony Lima City Tours" he should come up. He has great ratings on TripAdvisor and was very easy to work with. He's pretty responsive on e-mail and his English is good. Jhony's tours are private and he will personalize them for you. The first day we did a tour in the historic center of Lima (cathedral, convent, and catacombs) and added on the Museo Larco which I found to be the best collection of Inca and pre-Inca artifacts. On Day 9 we did a walking tour of Miraflores (where the hotel is) and Barranco (the bordering neighborhood to the south) and added on the Museo Pedro de Osma which is mostly colonial art. I don't know whether Jhony does a culinary tour but it wouldn't hurt to ask.

Hope this helps!

 

[danv3]

For anyone that's interested, everyone in our group did the rafting, and no one seemed to get sick directly related to it. The river was actually less polluted/gross than I expected based on what I had read. Some people did get what seemed to be traveler's diarrhea, but I don't necessarily associate it with the river.

 

[AdamEfimoff]

Danv,

Thanks! This was so helpful! We go in December. So far only 12 booked. It's nic to hear it went well with 11. What airline did you fly? I got an amazing fare on Avianca but I am a bit nervous about them.

Did you do anything in Lima on your own? We are thinking about a culinary tour.

Thanks,

Cindy

http://www.theworlds50best.com/list/1-50-winners
http://www.theworlds50best.com/latinamerica/en/the-list.html

 

[acndis]

Adam and Danv,

Thanks! This is fantastic info.

 

[AdamEfimoff]

http://www.pec.pe/#!destinations/c1cdl

 

[RebelHawk]

We are down to five months until our Adult Only Peru trip. We'll be a party of four adults that have been on dozens of trips together over the years. We spoke with our wonderful DU TA Tracey Heinrichs this week who has confirmed that the trip is in a "guaranteed" status. We will be traveling with 27 of our future best friends for a total of 31 people booked on the trip (so far).

With confirmation of the ABD trip being guaranteed we have moved ahead with our next steps by booking our airfare. Other than the horrible arrival and departure times from Lima (11PM arrive and 1AM departure) we are really looking forward to getting there. We have also booked one pre day at the Marriott Miraflores. We did choose to use my Marriott points for this reservation rather than the $410 price ABD wanted to charge. We are arriving so late well likely walk into the room and crash for the night. Then if we have to change rooms to our ABD room then we'll just leave our bags with the valet until our ABD room is ready later that day while we explore the city.

After reading the trip reports I could find I didn't see a lot of discussion on what people did for a pre day in Lima. Anyone have any suggestions? Lonely Planet just released their updated 2016 Peru book so I bought that and will likely get either Fodor's or Frommer's as well.

Last steps will be following up with our family Dr and see what she recommends for immunization as well as altitude pills once we get a bit closer to departure.

 

[AdamEfimoff]

We are down to five months until our Adult Only Peru trip. We'll be a party of four adults that have been on dozens of trips together over the years. We spoke with our wonderful DU TA Tracey Heinrichs this week who has confirmed that the trip is in a "guaranteed" status. We will be traveling with 27 of our future best friends for a total of 31 people booked on the trip (so far).

With confirmation of the ABD trip being guaranteed we have moved ahead with our next steps by booking our airfare. Other than the horrible arrival and departure times from Lima (11PM arrive and 1AM departure) we are really looking forward to getting there. We have also booked one pre day at the Marriott Miraflores. We did choose to use my Marriott points for this reservation rather than the $410 price ABD wanted to charge. We are arriving so late well likely walk into the room and crash for the night. Then if we have to change rooms to our ABD room then we'll just leave our bags with the valet until our ABD room is ready later that day while we explore the city.

After reading the trip reports I could find I didn't see a lot of discussion on what people did for a pre day in Lima. Anyone have any suggestions? Lonely Planet just released their updated 2016 Peru book so I bought that and will likely get either Fodor's or Frommer's as well.

Last steps will be following up with our family Dr and see what she recommends for immunization as well as altitude pills once we get a bit closer to departure.

I would eat eat and eat!!!!

 

[danv3]

We are down to five months until our Adult Only Peru trip. We'll be a party of four adults that have been on dozens of trips together over the years. We spoke with our wonderful DU TA Tracey Heinrichs this week who has confirmed that the trip is in a "guaranteed" status. We will be traveling with 27 of our future best friends for a total of 31 people booked on the trip (so far).

With confirmation of the ABD trip being guaranteed we have moved ahead with our next steps by booking our airfare. Other than the horrible arrival and departure times from Lima (11PM arrive and 1AM departure) we are really looking forward to getting there. We have also booked one pre day at the Marriott Miraflores. We did choose to use my Marriott points for this reservation rather than the $410 price ABD wanted to charge. We are arriving so late well likely walk into the room and crash for the night. Then if we have to change rooms to our ABD room then we'll just leave our bags with the valet until our ABD room is ready later that day while we explore the city.

After reading the trip reports I could find I didn't see a lot of discussion on what people did for a pre day in Lima. Anyone have any suggestions? Lonely Planet just released their updated 2016 Peru book so I bought that and will likely get either Fodor's or Frommer's as well.

Last steps will be following up with our family Dr and see what she recommends for immunization as well as altitude pills once we get a bit closer to departure.

You could hire a driver/guide to take you to the historic center to see the cathedral, convent/catacombs, and various colonial era buildings. You can also do some nice walks in the Miraflores and Barranco. That's what we did on our pre- and post-days. If you're interested in Inca and pre-Inca art/artifacts, I thought the Museo Larco was the best museum we visited. It didn't really seem to be near anything else, though, and it's not walkable from the hotel.

 

[RebelHawk]

Good news is our ABD box arrived this afternoon for our upcoming Peru trip. The bad news is we still have just over a month until we go.