Santa Cruz 4 Tage Trek

WARNING: Only book if you’re fluent in Spanish and are a very experienced hiker. You may be left stranded. While the tour coordinator assured the guide was bilingual Spanish English, not he nor any of the porters spoke a single WORD of English. I didn’t find this out until it was too late and we were en route for the trip. Even after, the coordinator kept lying with various excuses pretending and insisting he did actually speak English(!!!) If you have any potential health issues, serious altitude considerations or concerns in general and have limited Spanish like I did, be aware, you won’t be able to communicate anything for 4 days. Yes you can rely on maybe there will be others who can translate (though In my case, others’ bad translations and inaccurate info actually ruined one of the days). Additionally, due to a sudden change in plans (in Spanish) where the highly experienced group would undertake an additional ascending hike on day 3 (totaling 10hrs and not the estimated 5 that was outlined to me), I was almost stranded by the guide who insisted I walk alone five hours to the next camp through the mountains. Me. Female. Inexperienced and with limited spanish and experiencing altitude sickness. So my options were due trying to ascend or walk alone through mountains. This was after he publicly assured the group he’d take me to the next camp, as they had another guide. All I could do was yell in limited Spanish and insist I would NOT be hiking alone through the Andes. Seeing the route after, there were many, many places I could have easily gone off track and been lost in the mountains. Additionally, each day the guide was galloping from one camp to the next and only the very experienced could keep up. That’s all that seemed to matter to him. Forget about actually enjoying the hike and scenery. Hikes start daily 7am sharp. Also, I found out from others they booked the tour in Huaraz and paid 500 soles (roughly $125). I understand booking through a third party means higher price but nearly double??? Everything else like food and tent set up was fantastic though. However, this company’s reckless and deceptive behavior basically endangering people’s lives is incomprehensible.

The Santa cruz trek is amazing and it is not very demanding. The views are amazing. As you are walking below the 6k mountains, you feel so small. Also the wild life in the valley is breathtaking: never saw so many wild horses, donkeys, cows, lamas, hummingbirds,... And as a bonus at the end you can go to local aqua caliente.

I loved the tour, but I can’t recommend booking it via Andean Summit. 1) It is more expensive than booking e.g. in a hostel in Huaraz. 2) They postponed my start of the tour. For “compensation” they offered me a “discount” on another tour which turned out to be the normal price. Besides, I could negotiate a free night in their hostel (Sleep & Summit). It was the worst hostel I ever slept in (no windows, no hot water, far from the city center). 3) They told me I would not need cash. However, I had to pay 60 soles for the entrance of the park.