Peru 4U

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References from Peru4U's customers.

More references received from some of our customers...

From: Mr. Charles E. and Mrs. Marilyn Dash. (USA) Date: Mon 10/3/2005 7:29 PM

Dear Joseph:
We had a wonderful trip to Peru. It was fascinating, amazingly beautiful, adventuresome, and altogether terrific! Some of the highlights included the trip to Colca canyon, the visit to Lake Titicaca, especially our home stay on Amantani, the Inca Class train ride to Cusco, and of course, Machu Picchu. Incidentally we made several new friends on the trip, which we have not done on earlier trips. Of special note as to the guides, we loved Luis in Lima who gave us our city tour. He was charming and warm. And we consider Alex n Arequipa a personal friend. She was superb. Bruno from Puno who guided our tour of Lake Titicaca was also excellent.

There are always things that could have been better. Two of our transfer agents (Ulises in Puno and Sonia in Cusco) spoke very little English. Fortunately this gave me the opportunity to use my Spanish (I have been studying for about 3 years) so it turned out well, but it could have been a problem had we been non-Spanish speakers.

Ulises should have forewarned us to repack our things because we could not take our suitcases on the Lake Titicaca trip. Travelers should also be reminded in advance to bring a flashlight for the home stay. Let me comment on the home stay on Amantani. It was a wonderful and eye-opening experience. We loved it, are very happy we did it, and I am not sure we would have had the courage to sign up if we had realized how primitive it would be. You probably get many people like us who love it, and a few who can't deal with it! By the way, our thanks to our home stay family with whom we had a great conversation: Elias, Silvia, and their daughter Vanessa. We especially loved wearing their clothes and the community dance!

We were disappointed with the two tours when in Cusco: the day-long Sacred Valley tour and the half-day Cusco city tour. The problem is that a great deal of time was wasted with picking up at several hotels, drop-off and pick-up at lunch stops and too many souvenir stops. Again on the Cusco afternoon tour: the stay at Sacsayhuaman was forshortened to rush off to three more souvenir stops that were of no interest to us. We would suggest that you offer people the alternative of a private or semi-private tour with emphasis on the historical sites and explain the difference. We would gladly have paid more to have a more personal, private tour as we had in Lima and Arequipa.

It always helps to explain things in as much detail as possible in the itinerary. I was concerned about what to do with our luggage on arrival in Machu Picchu because we had to go directly to the site without stopping at the hotel. It turns out that all the hotels send porters to the train station to pick up your luggage automatically, so it was no problem, but I gave Sonia a hard time about it because I didn't understand the arrangements.

So it was a wonderful trip and a memorable experience and we thank you for your help in the planning. Best regards to the extraordinary Luis and Alex , and a hug for Sonia Caceres in Cusco--she tried very hard to please us.

Let us know what you think of all of this.
Best wishes,
Charles and Marilyn Dashe