Top Cusco 4WD Tours - page 3

This is the best private tour we have ever been on! Our tour guide was so friendly and knowledgeable, and he cultivated a very pleasant atmosphere. We learned so much and were captivated the entire day. All stops were incredibly interesting, and we feel the tour greatly deepened our knowledge of Peru and its history.

With a couple snags along the way, it was still a wonderful experience. We were picked up from our hotel in Cusco at 4 am. The driver was actually 5 minutes early. The roads were bumpy so I was happy to have already recovered from altitude sickness the day before. After 2 hours we reached the train station in Ollantaytambo. The train schedules seem to be a bit flexible, but we eventually boarded and our car was not very full. This allowed us to change seats to face the direction of travel, at the attendant’s suggestion. After about 45 minutes the train came to a stop. The conductor said we had to wait for another train to pass. We waited a very long time until we found out the train ahead of us had broken down and was being repaired on the tracks, causing us to be very late for our arrival (2 hours). This affected our Machupicchu tour time and tour guide’s schedule. We kept in contact with him, the other person who was supposed to meet us at the train station in Aguas Calientes, and the tour company. The first two stayed in good contact with us and reassured us that this happens and they would handle the change in entry times for us. Mauro, our guide, was so kind and helpful. However, after waiting in the long line to enter Machupicchu, he was told our virtual tickets would not be accepted, only paper tickets. We had followed the directions the evening before and met with Frank at the orientation where instead of picking up tickets, he said he would send them virtually to my phone, which he did. I didn’t foresee this being a problem, but it was. Mauro, our persistent and kindhearted guide told us to wait right there at the entrance of Machupicchu for him to figure it out. After what seemed like 30-40 minutes, he came back with printed tickets! He had to pay someone with his own money to let him use her printer so we could enter. I will be forever grateful to him. Machupicchu is AMAZING and he was so informative and didn’t give up on us. He didn’t cut our tour short, either. But we had to hustle to get on a bus down, and Mauro convinced someone to let us go in front of everyone so we could make our train. I hope nobody else has to go through this, because for awhile I thought there’s no way we’re going to get in, which would have been devastating. Mauro even rode the bus back down to the train station, took us to a restaurant and instructed them to make something fast (we hadn’t eaten all day due to the circumstances which left no time), and made sure we were at the station in time for our regularly scheduled train. Mauro was our hero and a great companion, as he handled it all so well. Meanwhile, the tour company had gone silent from the time I told them there was a problem with the tickets. Luckily they have a very communicative team picking up the slack and handling it well. Mauro is the reason that this story has a happy ending. Thank you!!!

I had an amazing day. The guide was very knowledgable about the history of Cusco and the Incas. We took a bus to the different sites and walked around them up and down some hills and steps. A few of us were new to Cusco, and the guide was kind enough to give us time as we acclimatised. Awesome day!