Lake Titicaca Tours & Trips

Overall this was a great tour that took in all the key highlights in Peru. We had an excellent tour guide Diana who arranged several additional activities that we requested. The pace of the tour was active with each day full of activities and/or travel but not overwhelming. There was a nice balance of organized activities with free time to do our thing. Very few meals other than breakfast were included so we were free to explore local restaurants. Hotel accommodations were basic but perfectly acceptable.

Excellent trip with an exceptional Guide, Olmer. He was very knowledgeable and passionate about his country and especially its INCA past. Perhaps less time on long coach journeys might be better. It was a rush trying to fit everything in sometimes eg: NASCA lines. Not too impressed with LIMA and so could have missed that part very easily. Disappointed that we had to pay an extra $29 to get ours seats together for the return journey from Lima to Madrid. Thought that would have been sorted out before the trip started?? Overall a fantastic trip and we would recommend it to our friends.

Overall the tour was great. The main highlight was absolutely the Inca trail, where the arrangements were amazing, our guides were fantastic and the porters and chefs were out of this world. I wasn’t the fittest of people doing it and the support from the guides (and my fellow travellers) was incredible. In addition to this, the food was ridiculously good (perhaps a little too much to have 3 course lunch and dinner with afternoon tea in between) and the fact that we had a portable toilet was awesome. Other highlights included the walking tour of Lima, the time in Cusco, seeing some incredible animals in the jungle (albeit the guides willingness to poke tarantulas with sticks was a little scary), a couple of amazing nights out with the group and our tour guide, the home stay in lake titicaca and the opportunities to see the work of indigenous people and purchase some of it. Given all of this, you may be wondering why 4 stars instead of 5. The answer is that there were some areas of disorganisation and communication that made it challenging to plan and just introduced unnecessary stress. The largest of which was only being given 30 minutes to pack for the Inca trail. 4 days of an arduous trek for which having the right stuff could make a huge difference and we were unnecessarily rushed. There were also a few times where we were given incomplete information, such as about meals we would need to pay for, and opportunities to buy stuff. While I appreciated the chance to buy handmade goods from local people, we were given no indication of price or how much cash to carry, and there were then additional costs thrown in afterwards that weren’t given up front. When asking clear questions, the answers were often entirely unclear and convoluted, leading to more confusion. There was also little information given about certain logistical things - such as there only being a few hours of electricity per day at the jungle lodge (so that people could bring power packs) or that there would be no hot water or that you would need to wear long sleeves and pants in 35 degree weather with high humidity. Instead you were told 6 times not to forget your torch. Yes, I can see how that mattered, but given most people have a phone that can be used as a torch, was fairly low risk. Most people would not plan on packing long sleeves into their duffel for boiling weather unless told to do so. The scheduling in general was problematic - there was almost no free time for the vast majority of the tour. Even when there was time, additional things were pulled together which frankly weren’t worth the time but you didn’t want to miss anything. Given that the trip did involve a very challenging hike, a little more downtime would’ve been appreciated. The folks who did the Inca trail also weren’t able to do the hot springs at aquas calientes and got less than an hour to explore the town, which was honestly just really disappointing and felt like it was just an unnecessary way to schedule things. Getting back to Cusco 2 hours later would’ve been much better than missing such a cool and interesting experience. The other real annoyance was the journey to la Paz at the end. This was entirely pointless and just created logistical challenges for trying to get home on a sensible return flight. I would’ve been happy to overlook this had there been activities in la Paz, but the only activity was an hour orientation tour to show us some basic locations of things. We then had dinner as a group and that was it. It took us more than 10 hours to get there, crossing the border was a bit hectic and there genuinely seemed to be no point whatsoever. A flight back to Lima (or Cusco) would’ve been infinitely preferable and it is really unclear why this is the way intrepid have chosen to end this tour. One assumes cost, but it’s not like this is a cheap tour. Had I known the full story, I probably wouldn’t have booked this tour. Additionally, the communication from intrepid was appalling. Not sure if they just don’t have anyone monitoring your radar, but it was a battle to get basic information out of them. Some other issues that should be rectified - the materials make a big deal about the Inca trail not being luxury as it is camping. I don’t think anyone expects it to be, but the reality was that the facilities there were sometimes better than the hotels. The general standard of the hotels was pretty poor - from lacking hot water to sub-standard breakfasts to cleanliness issues. The best hotel by far was the one in la Paz. Transport was also fairly hit and miss, and some timings felt entirely arbitrary. The materials sent up front could give much more useful information and the guides need to be much better at communicating basic requirements in advance. Overall the trip was amazing. But I think that this was almost in spite of intrepid rather than because of them. We got great guides on the Inca trail, but they’re freelance so that was probably luck of the drawer. We also had a great group which made a huge difference. The Inca trail is an experience that should not be missed, but this tour might not be the one to do it on.