Before we came to Peru, we had big expectations. We were excited and optimistic. The south of the country is a world famous tourist destination - everyone knows Machu Picchu and the Sacred Valley of the Incas - and you'd think that as a result, visiting such places would be straightforward, well-organised and smooth sailing. After arriving into Cusco, we arranged to head to Machu Picchu on a 4 day mountain biking and hiking tour with a company named Peruvian Trips (or Chaska), booked through our hostel (as recommended by several travel guides).
The problems started immediately on the first day - after being told we would be met at our hostel at 7:30am, over an hour later we found ourselves asking the staff if they could call up and find out where our guide was. Eventually someone was located, and we met up with a busload of waiting people who probably assumed we'd slept in.
While we couldn't fault the beauty of the scenery we biked and hiked through, there wasn't much else about the tour that you say was great, or even satisfactory. With most meals, no drinks were provided - not even water, which seems insane on a trek - or the meals were too slow (waiting over an hour and a half for one lunch), or were ridiculously small (like a tiny roll with a piece of cheese). Most of our accommodations were at the worst dives in each town, up in the dirty back streets, which again is pretty stingy given just how cheap accommodation is - for an extra AUD$5 we could have stayed somewhere really nice. Our guide was around only when absolutely necessary, otherwise was nowhere to be seen. The deluxe options we'd paid extra for (including additional walking up another mountain and then a train ride) never eventuated - our guide dismissed that this had ever been organised (when we'd made sure to confirm this, and were told it was all going ahead).
On the final day, we returned from Machu Picchu early in the afternoon, and were told that we (just us, not the rest of the group) were now on an early train to Ollantaytambo. After rushing over to catch this train, we discovered that the tickets were actually for the following day. We just managed to find our guide (again, who had just given us the tickets and then disappeared), and he got them changed for the original train time for that day. It was still a mystery to us what would have happened had we not returned from Machu Picchu early - we would have found ourselves with tickets for the following day, no accommodation organised, no guide and no way to contact the guide, and no connecting bus from Ollantaytambo to Cusco. After meeting up with the others once again, our group endured the joys of Peruvian hospitality - mystery 20% 'taxes' tacked onto an already exorbitant bill, general rudeness from staff, and being kicked out of another cafe for not ordering enough.
If this wasn't already enough to deal with, when our train finally pulled into Ollantaytambo, we found ourselves in a crush of people, searching for our names on one of the signs held up by the various bus operators meeting the train. While the rest of our group found their names with a couple of different buses, 3 of us found ourselves nameless, busless, and again, without a guide (who had conveniently returned on a much earlier train). We then underwent a heated argument with the bus lady (thankfully one of the girls in our group translated for us as this was all in spanish), who would not let us on the bus with the rest of our group. By this stage anger and frustration had given way to tears and despair. Eventually after several phonecalls were made, another bus lady wandered over and told us that our names had just been added to another list with another bus. After sitting in the carpark for another hour (waiting for passengers from another train), we eventually got back to Cusco around 11pm, where we were unceremoniously dumped onto the street, several blocks from the city centre. By this stage the stress, cold and fatigue had taken its toll, and I collapsed vomiting in the main square - a fitting end to a fantastically crappy tour that we'd paid good money for.
In all of this, Cusco, Machu Picchu, the Inca Trail, and Aguas Calientes were overwhelmingly overshadowed by the amount of shit that we had to put up with in getting there. Cusco is a lovely city, but every 5m you get confronted by yet another Peruvian wanting you to buy their crafts, eat at their restaurant, have a massage, book a tour, go to a club, or get in a taxi - all of which gets annoying fast, especially when some people don't understand 'No' and get angry at you! Machu Picchu is an amazing archaeological site, and the landscape is spectacular - it's just such a shame it's in Peru instead of some other country that deserves it. It has probably the most expensive entry price of any archaeological site in the world, yet they have the nerve to charge you to use the toilet. The Bolivians are said to despise the Peruvians, saying that they're all liars, cheats and thieves, and in our opinion this is totally correct. Of course there have to be some Peruvians out there who don't lie, cheat and steal - but as a tourist, you're unlikely to encounter them unless you get lucky or you've forked out a ridiculous amount of money first. In Asia, when you catch someone trying to rip you off and you eventually get the fair and going rate the people are generally like, 'ok, haha, you got me there!', however in Peru, people get angry at you for wanting a fair price. It seems that being rude and ripping off tourists off is simply ingrained in their nature. And our bad experiences (of which we've only just scratched the surface) are definitely not isolated incidents - most of the people on our tour had also been frustrated or scammed in Peru, and you only have to look on the online travel forums to read about thousands upon thousands of similar stories.
So what's our end opinion? Well, we despise this most visited part of Peru, and cannot wait to get out of this country of rude, lying, scamming thieves. Yes, there are some wonderful things to see here, but it's just not worth it if you want to be treated fairly and honestly. As an independent or seasoned traveller who knows better, you're in for a stressful experience where you cannot let down your guard for a second. Hopefully all the tourists eventually figure this out, and opt not to visit Cusco or Machu Picchu, as we see this as the only way Peru will ever see fit to rectify any of these problems. We'll leave you with a quote from Cusco's regional president Hugo Gonzalez, who has suggested a substantial increase to Machu Picchu's entry price (which is already significantly more than any other archaological site):
'Foreigners are already spending at least $1000 on their flights and accommodation, so they can afford to pay more for the main reason they came here.'
I'd say that sums up the Peruvian mentality perfectly.
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