Canyons, Mountains & Vineyards

[Fifa]

I'm really enjoying your TR and photos Jacques Vert and Gem56!

We found one ATM in Cusco that did not charge a fee - I think it was BanBif bank. If I remember correctly it only allowed us to withdraw a max of 400 sols per day.

 

[craven morehead]

Count me in for the ride, looking forward to this TR.

 

[craven morehead]

Our digs for the next two nights are the Double Tree in Paracas on a Points and Pay deal (to get the price down to my budget allowance).

We liked this place, very nice...

We were upgraded to a suite and given free breakfast due to my Gold status....fortunately, my spanish isn't good enough to tell them that I am now silver (since the end of March).

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Looks like a cracking place !!

 

[Milboo]

Loving the report so far.

We stayed at the JW Marriott just opposite that mall in Miraflores and it was great.

 

[Jacques Vert]

I'm really enjoying your TR and photos Jacques Vert and Gem56!

We found one ATM in Cusco that did not charge a fee - I think it was BanBif bank. If I remember correctly it only allowed us to withdraw a max of 400 sols per day.

I couldn't help thinking of you when I saw that slalom course down the sandhill in the oasis and the skis for rent. You would have had a ball!

 

[Jacques Vert]

Loving the report so far.

We stayed at the JW Marriott just opposite that mall in Miraflores and it was great.

Looked very nice but a wee bit pricey on the days we were in Lima.

 

[love_the_life]

Loving the report so far.

We stayed at the JW Marriott just opposite that mall in Miraflores and it was great.

From memory that’s where we stayed as well. Remember it was very good. It was part of a ‘tour’ we were on (just the 2 of us).
Enjoying this TR immensely.

 

[Jacques Vert]

Back at the Courtyard in Lima for another night, and this time we remembered to take a photo of the room (as we were leaving):

Just realised the photo didn't upload, so here it is...

 

[Jacques Vert]

From the Courtyard in Miraflores we were picked up by our driver and headed for the Ramada Costa del Sol at the airport where we stayed the night as we had to check in by 04:15 for a flight at 05:45 OMG!

The Ramada is directly across the road from the terminal and should have been good except for a couple of fails:

1. At check-in, we asked for a wake-up call for 03:00! No problem Senior; except it didn't eventuate...nothing, nada. Fortunately, I had the alarm on my phone which got us up in time; otherwise it could have been a disaster. There's a lesson here.
2. Also at check-in, the agent made a big song and dance about breakfast being available from 0400, just for people like us with early floghts to catch. Great, except at 0415 breakfast consisted of a couple of cereals, some scrambled eggs and coffee/juice. No other hot items and the staff were still setting up at 0440 when we left to go through security. Perhaps not really a fail but not what I expected after the big build-up at check-in.
3. Checking out, I asked the agent to charge me in US Dollars as I had some pre-loaded on ;my QCash card (yes I know but I will explain later). The agent printed my invoice in US Dollars and payment made. It was only when checking my account later that I realised that he had charged me in AUD, thus costing me another 4%!

I was too blurry eyed at that hour of the morning to notice!

 

[Jacques Vert]

Back to the Ramada when we sort the photos out.

For now, Qantas Cash:

Yes you loose 4% when you load currency onto this card and therefore it is not something I normally do. However, a few months back the Aussi was buying 79 to 80 US cents per $ and I was thinking it might be a good time to lock in some cash. After exploring the difficulties in opening a bank account in $US, I received an offer of 1 point per $ to load money onto this account.

So I checked the rate and decided to lock in some funds as insurance; just in case the Aussi took a nose dive before our trip.

The net rate I got was 0.764 which didn't seem that attractive at the time. We are now in Peru with the Aussi sitting at around 0.75 and I'm feeling rather pleased with myself

I hope the pre-loaded funds last until the Aussi heads back up again.

 

[Jacques Vert]

Apologies for the delay; the reason will become clear in following posts.

Ramada Costa del Sol, Lima Airport.

The Ramada at the airport usually costs around $US240 per night. Not cheap, but there is a way around this. Wyndham Rewards “Go Fast” rate is 3,000 points and some $.

At the time we booked the Go Fast rate was 3,000 points + $US99 (incl. tax). You can buy 3,000 points for $US39 although when we bought they cost us $33. So we joined and purchased 3,000 points and paid a total of $US132 instead of $240.

Unfortunately, the Go Fast rate seems to have gone up considerably but still worth doing the numbers if you need to stay near the airport.

Forgot to take photos but pretty standard room for this level of chain hotel.

 

[Jacques Vert]

So we headed across the road to check-in at 0400 and it is already a scrum with hundreds of people lined up to check-in.




No wonder Latam recommend arriving at least one and a half hours before your flight for domestic. But priority check-in is empty and I notice that OneWorld Ruby/Qantas Silver are welcome. So straight up and all done within 5 minutes.

Back to the Ramada for breakfast. As I noted above, breakfast was a huge fail; next time I think I would buy something in the terminal.

 

[Jacques Vert]

LA2117 LIM –AQP

This was a points booking using QFF points. Internal flights in Peru and/or Chile are excellent value. This flight cost 5,000 points and $A7.25 each. Can’t complain about that.

Arequipa

There are many excellent trip reports on this site on Machu Picchu and most, if not all, recommend heading straight down the Sacred Valley to acclimatise rather than stay in Cuzco which is considerably higher. This is excellent advice.

Unfortunately the availability of award flights didn't allow us to go to MP first and then to Arequipa. So we went with Plan B which saw us fly to Arequipa (2,328m) to do our acclimatising there. We would have liked two days to acclimatise but again the award flights that were available at the time we booked only allowed us one day.

So we did a slow stroll down to the laundry (3), all of whom told us that they couldn't do our washing and have it finished the same day. So we slowly walked back to the hotel and did some hand washing, then basically took it easy for the rest of the day.

Our first look in Arequipa:

 

[Jacques Vert]

Our hotel in Arequipa was the El Cabildo at $US97.20 :

:
The El Cabildo is certainly no Hilton and the Internet was quite slow. Also you had to cross the Courtyard to get to the breakfast room which proved to be a wee bit chilly first thing in the morning.

Apart from that it was nice enough and suited our purposes fine.

 

[Jacques Vert]

So off to bed early as we are being picked up at 0700 for our tour to the Colca Canyon. Now those of you who have followed my previous trip reports will know that we rarely take organised tours, preferring to drive or catch a train, travel at our own pace and have the flexibility to do what we want, when we want.

However, on this occasion I decided to go with Carlitos Tours, 2 days, 1 night. I didn’t fancy taking the risk of succumbing to Altitude Sickness while behind the wheel of a car but I also didn’t fancy sitting on a bus tour for two days being herded on and off, etc,

So we arranged a private tour; +1 & I, a driver who spoke a little English, and a guide who spoke excellent English. The tour included pick-up from the airport (and return to the airport after the tour), a “short tour of the city” (which was basically the pick-up driver pointing out a couple of things as he took us to our hotel), one night’s accommodation in the Colca Canyon, all meals (2 x lunch, 1 x dinner, 1 x breakfast), tourist ticket for the canyon, snacks & water, and entry to the hot spring near Chivay. We had to pay for our own alcoholic drinks and souvenirs. All inclusive price of $US285 per person.

Mr Carlitos came to our hotel shortly after our arrival to brief us on the tour, collect his money, and arrange the pick-up time and confirm the hotel option. As it happened, Carlitos said that the price was now $290 per person because he wanted to include some short treks; after a little discussion we agreed; more on this later.

Next morning around 7-15 the driver arrived and off we went...

 

[RooFlyer]

Fab-o scenery! What's your altitude there?

 

[Boca68]

Fab-o scenery! What's your altitude there?

Top of the canyon RooFlyer is about 3500m. But the road there from Arequipa tops out close 4000m. It's quite spectacular. It's a good 3.5 to 4 hour drive
Arequipa is about 2200m.

 

[Boca68]

1. Checking out, I asked the agent to charge me in US Dollars as I had some pre-loaded on ;my QCash card (yes I know but I will explain later). The agent printed my invoice in US Dollars and payment made. It was only when checking my account later that I realised that he had charged me in AUD, thus costing me another 4%!I was too blurry eyed at that hour of the morning to notice!

I've experienced this a before in Peru, @Jacques Vert . But usually wanting USD and getting Soles or vice versa. I should have told you before, but insist on a 'factura' not a 'boleta'. Boleta is basically your standard receipt, a factura is an itemised tax receipt. If you get this, you will see it immediately. A lot of hotels, restaurants will say to you as foreigner you don't need it, but it's easier to pick up problems like this.

Obviously only get it for large transactions.

 

[kermatu]

Signing on to this one. Great stuff so far.

 

[RooFlyer]

I have this sudden urge to visit Colca Canyon