Tour 7 Ausangate Lagoons

I seldom write reviews unless it's extremely good or horrible. Let's break this down for this trip. The landscape is amazing but the tour operator is horrible and totally unprofessional - (1) their trip ads is misleading - when you check avail spots it gives you options to choose the pick-up time but in fact they tell you two days before the trip they can only pick you up at 4:20 - 5:10am. After they promised you to pick you up at at 5:10am they would change it the last minute telling you to pick you up at 4:25am. Dishonest and horrible operator. Yet, the horrible thing is you have to wait in the van for at least an hour at 4:50am in the morning waiting for other passengers (2) They adverstise this is a small group tour (max 12 people in the group) but in fact they overloaded the van to board 19-20 people in my case, hence the conflict of not enough sapce (3) when conflicts arise between passengers, due to the fact the tour operator overload passengers to make more money, the tour guide only listened to Spanish speaking tourists' and IGNORED English speaking passengers' statement and situation. Instead of helping to mitigate the conflict, my tour guide publicly scolded me and calling me acting like a three year old in the public (without understading my situation) It is a horrible trip for me despite the view was good. P.S. for anyone who consider this trip, pls note it is an 8 hour round trip transportation time and you hike for 4-5 hours in between. Be prepared for a very dusty road section and you will inhale a lot of dust in the van. Breakfast and lunch options horrible, it's like a motel in the country side but if you don't mind depressing dining venue and the "chefs" touching your food after touching the dirty dishes, pls feel free to go ahead. I would not go back again no matter how great the view is with this operator. A horrible experience with the operator as they take care of Spanish speaking passengers needs first and casually ignore any non Spanish speaking customers need and failed to appreciate other cultures

El lugar esta de maravilla, lo pésimo es lo caro que cuesta contratar con Ustedes (tripadvisor) por el servicio que ofrecen, me parece que deben ser selectivos en los operadores del viaje. 1ro. Por razones de salud mi acompañante no pudo asistir y no es retornable ningún porcentaje de lo contratado. 2do. El minibus muy incomodo y no respetaron mi espacio perdido con tal de que el guía fuera lo más placentero en su espacio. 3ro. Quedaron de pasar por mi a las 4:30 am y llegaron a las 5:20 en un carro para después dejarme en el minibus y por ser el último en recogerme me toco los lugares de atras, donde imposible relajar las piernas. En general les recomiendo contratar directamente en el lugar de partida, al menos resulta un 50% mas barato

The hike was great and Ausangate was absolutely breathtaking. I had the opportunity to take some incredible pictures. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable, friendly, and readily carried medical supplies for the few of us in our group that got altitude sickness. He was incredible and I couldn't ask for someone better. From a backpacking perspective, it was a nice trip. Unfortunately I don't think it was a full 5 stars experience. Our tour was delayed about 2 hours due to various reasons while driving out to the location. One example was our 15min driving break actually taking 45min because the driver disappeared. Perhaps this was the first time this has happened, but it was rather annoying taking almost twice as long to get to the hike. Also the provided food at breakfast and lunch was quite cheap, minimal, and in an unsanitary rural area that I strongly believe got me sick for a week. It did taste good, but being sick after this trip was quite disappointing to the rest of my hiking in Peru. It may be a good idea to bring your own food if you aren't comfortable with what's provided.