This was the trek from hell. I will have nightmares for years about being told to "Vamos!"
tl;dr: Guides don't believe in altitude sickness, won't accommodate slower hikers, rush you throughout the tour, and lie repeatedly. I have never been treated so poorly on a guided tour of any kind, in any country.
Chronologically:
- At Condor’s Cross, we were told to be back to the bus within half an hour. We returned to the bus slightly late by about 10-15 minutes because I had to use the restroom, which was farther away than I expected, and I had to climb a hill back to the bus, which was hard because we were not well acclimatized yet. The bus had LEFT without us, along with all of our stuff. One guide had been left behind to look for us, and together with him, we bummed a ride with a French tour group to rejoin our group. They had not left yet or done anything without us; instead, by abandoning us, the tour company extended the amount of time it took for all of our group to get to that pre-trek location.
- When we rejoined our group, our stuff was waiting for us. However, the bus was gone. Because we could not check the bus ourselves to make sure we had everything, we did not realize until we were at our accommodations 3000ft down in the canyon that the company had left our ALTITUDE SICKNESS MEDICATION (Diamox) on the bus. We had only been in Peru 2 days before the trek began and were having altitude related symptoms. This could have been an extremely dangerous situation.
- The trek itself is actually quite miserable - the paths in and out of the canyon are 100% switchbacks. JUST down, and then JUST up. No breaks for your muscles to do something even slightly different. No ups and downs. Just one or the other. To be fair, this is not the fault of the tour company, just something to know going in.
- On the way down the mountain, we were significantly slower than the rest of the group, which was better acclimatized. In addition, I was coming down with a bacterial infection, which would become clear on day 2. As we trekked down, our guide would check up on us only to say, “Vamos! Vamos!” As if we were not trying our best. It was extremely insensitive and just made us feel bad. To his credit, he took my bag for the last 15 or so minutes to the bottom of the canyon.
- It was not clear why there was such a rush to get to the bottom; after lunch, there was absolutely nothing to do. This was a theme; the second day, we arrived at the Sangalle Oasis, and lunch wasn’t even for another hour and a half. Why all of this hurrying up to wait?
- Our guide lied MULTIPLE times about the availability of drinking water throughout the trek. At the first accommodation, we asked in Spanish whether we needed to purchase more water here, or whether there would be opportunities on the way to Sangalle. He said clearly there would be NO opportunities in between. There were TWO, and we stopped for a nice long break at one of them. Given how much he saw me and my husband struggling on day 1, it was incredibly mean of him to force us to carry extra liters of water, when we could have bought it later and saved some energy.
- On Day 2, our guide said the trek would be flat. It is not flat. There is a big uphill at the beginning and an even bigger downhill at the end.
- On Day 2, when I was struggling, our guide told us that altitude sickness is all in the mind. On the way out of the canyon, he apparently saw a man vomit, and our tour mate asked how he explained the vomiting. He pointed to his head. This is an absolutely unacceptable attitude for a tour guide to have; altitude symptoms and sickness are of course established medical fact, and people can actually die if they go untreated. It is not safe to have guides leading tours who do not believe this disease exists.
- At the Oasis, they serve dinner at 7:30 and then expect you to get up for a 4:30 ascent. Why not serve dinner earlier to enable people to sleep as soon as it’s dark? It makes no sense.
- As I was getting sicker, my husband and I opted to ride mules out of the canyon instead of hiking. However, we also asked the guide what happens if we try to hike out but don’t make it by 8am, when we were supposed to go to breakfast in Cabanaconde. Our guide said “IT IS NOT OUR RESPONSIBILITY.” They would have abandoned us again!!! What on earth are you paying a tour company for, if not to take you to the site, and bring you back from the site safely?!
- The vans are extremely small and cramped. Whenever we reached a stop, they wanted us to get off the bus IMMEDIATELY (“VAMOS!”) and get back on IMMEDIATELY (“VAMOS!!!!”). But inside the bus, there was no space to look through your bag and grab the things you needed in advance of the stop. We were treated like poorly behaved school children 100% of the time, when in fact, we were on vacation, paying a tour company to show us around the country.
- Lunch on the last day is basically a scam. It’s framed in the description as if there are other options and you don’t have to do the buffet for 35 soles - you can just go somewhere else. Well, there is nowhere else. Our vegan friend ate French fries and some melon. Not exactly worth 35 soles.
- Throughout the tour, DRINKS ARE NOT INCLUDED. Do you think I mean alcohol? Think again! I mean DRINKING WATER! Run out of soles? Probably you’ll just die in the Canyon while being told to “Vamos!”
To be fair and complete in this review:
- The accommodations were adequate, with the second one being fairly nice
- The food was good and they did accommodate us being vegetarian
If you are a super fit hiker in your early 20s who is already well-acclimatized, with no problems flying up and down extremely steep trails, you probably won’t encounter some of the problems we did. Otherwise, I would strongly encourage you NOT to book this tour.
We were on a 3-day trek in the Colca Canyon. We highly recommend the 3 days tour, it's more relaxing than a 2 days tour. First day we hiked down to San Juan de Chuccho. The second day we went through the canyon to the Oasis Sangalle, where we had the whole afternoon free time to relax and swim. Third day, going up was the strongest part, but also for us - 67/62 year old couple - without problems. We were a great group and had a very nice and competent guide with James. Thank you very much James!