I finally got to visit Machu Picchu. Sam, Holly, Spencer, and I visited Peru for a week in June of 2016. Before this trip, I had never used a travel agency in my life. I love planning trips. It is one of my favorite things to do, and it was one of the more enjoyable parts of last year’s hike of the tour du Mont Blanc. However, the last six months have been really busy for all of us and no one wanted to do the planning, so we outsourced our trip.
My friend Judy told me that she had used a company out of Massachusetts called Andean Treks and she highly recommended them. Judy is a great traveler whose opinion I implicitly trust, so I signed with Andean Treks. I’ll review their service at the end of post.
Day 1
We all met up in in Lima on the evening of June 4th. We stayed at the airport hotel, because we had an early flight out to Cusco. It was called Costa del Sol. Andean Treks hires a lot of staff to help you and sometimes it feels like a bit much. I counted 3 distinct types of staff. The first is the guide who teaches you about all of the places you are visiting; the second is the driver who drives the van; and third is the person who meets you at the airport and rides with you to your hotel (remember the driver is driving.) That third person was always nice, but seemed a bit excessive. After we picked up our baggage in the Lima Airport we met a man from Andean Treks who walked us the 400 feet to the airport hotel. We really did not need that guy. Thanks, but I should have told Andean Treks that I was an able bodied person who can speak enough Spanish to check into a hotel.