Gap Adventures Peru Biography
I went on the Gap Adventures to Peru – Highlights of Peru tour. My experience is not good.
The tour guide: rude, disrespectful, impatient, unethical, total not interested in her job. She has hardly any knowledge about Peru (she did the tours for over 5 years, but still doesn’t know anything when people asked her questions). During the tours, she was usually lying down on the seats and sleeping on the bus, while the local guide was talking to us. I think it was not professional.
She took us to all “high price” and “over-priced” restaurants filled with westerners. Once after we finished our dinner, the restaurant owner came to collect the bill. The owner gave the tour guide a free meal, and also gave her a $20 bill. She took the money like she was supposed to get it. I thought it was very unethical - profiting from us who were actually paying for the tour. Some of those overpriced restaurants have really bad food. I got sick of it, so I went on my own, exploring places that local people visit.
She updated us next day’s itinerary during dinner, since I was no longer eating dinner with the group. I had to ask her either before or after the dinner. She was very impatient and told me “if you go to dinner with us, then you will know, and I don’t have to repeat it to you.”
She likes partying, so she took several people, including my roommate, to night club in Cusco. My roommate, also a single traveler like me, came back to the hotel room at 4am, and woke me up. I tried to talk to her about this, and ended up becoming an argument. She said rudely on the phone, “I don’t want to talk to you.” Then she hung up. She wouldn’t even come out her hotel room to talk to me face to face. I was using the phone in the hotel lobby.
Other travelers in the tour group don’t seem to be interested in knowing the local people at all. Most of them (all westerners from Europe) were happy about the fact that they were just hanging out with each other.
The first several days of the tours were like this: taking a bus for 7-10 hours, then resting in the hotel, the next day visiting a place for about 4 hours, then taking a bus again for 7-10 hours, and so on. Not until Arequipa, the tour became more interesting. The Colca Canyon, Puno, Cusco and the Amazon jungle were all wonderful places to go.
However, my tour scheduled me to say in Cusco for three full free days without any activities offered. So I had to pay for all the activities in Cusco myself. The lodging was fine. Only 2 nights out of 21 nights, the hotels were not good.
I would recommend no to go with Gap Adventures to Peru. It is quite easy to travel on your own. Just fly to Cusco from Lima, then you can find so many travel agencies to book your activities to all the major sites. I usually walked to a main street, and asked people where the local people like to eat. They would point you to the right direction or street. I would go for the ones full of people, usually indicating food is good and clean. I never had any problem eating in those restaurants, which only cost me 3 soles in Cusco, meal came with tea, soup, main entrée, and dissert. Food was great! Be careful with what the hotel front desk told you to go, many of them would give you names of expensive restaurants with hardly any local people.
Gap Adventures Peru
Gap Adventures Peru
Gap Adventures Peru
Gap Adventures Peru
Gap Adventures Peru
Gap Adventures Peru
Gap Adventures Peru
Gap Adventures Peru
Gap Adventures Peru
Gap Adventures Peru
Gap Adventures Peru
Gap Adventures Peru
Gap Adventures Peru
Gap Adventures Peru
Gap Adventures Peru
Gap Adventures Peru
Gap Adventures Peru
Gap Adventures Peru
Gap Adventures Peru
Gap Adventures Peru
Gap Adventures Peru
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