It takes some time to write a detailed report, hence here
first of all a summary.
About 30 years ago we have already been in Peru ( 1973
and 1977).
We had a wonderful time and excursions all over the country, collecting
algae and mosses. Now about 30 years later, it was time to visit some
friends and to see what changed in the country. However, this time it
was a touristic travel only, less strenuous but on the other hand we
had been only on places of touristic interest.
Our travel tour: Lima-Trujillo-Arequipa-Puno-Cuzco-Machu
Picchu-Iquitos.
not recommended: Lan Chile and OneWorld alliance (bad service, consumer
adversary, mysogenic, detailed information in preparation)
recommended: e.g. Lufthansa and star alliance (good service, consumer
friendly)
Travel agency in Peru:
Warning for Inkavasi, unbelievable bad arrangements, plenty of errors,
wrong reservations, wrong dates, changing of hotel reservations without
information (downgrading!) and heavily overpriced, e.g. a train ticket
to Machu Picchu was calculated with 320 US $ for the Hiram Bingham
train, but we got the tickets and also used the Vistadome train (price:
105 US$). For free transfer from airport to hotel by hotel bus Inkavasi
requested 15 US$ (detailed and long list of mismanagement in
preparation).
Recommended (extremely helpful!) the Peruvian tourist informations and
assistance service (iperu).
There are several offices on the Lima airport (and other big airports)
and in all towns of touristic interest. You can get any
information regarding traveling in Peru and if you have trouble with
hotels, travel companies or others travel problems, you can get
competent help. Try it!
Touristinfo:
www.peru.info
Flights in Peru:
Lan Peru: no good service and common delays up to 6 hours! There are
several other Peruvian airlines which are usually cheaper, but we have
no experience with these airlines. But we know that they arrived
in time e.g. in Iquitos (Lima-Iquitos), while Lan Peru had at the same
time for the same connection a delay of about 6 hours.
Take a note that you have to pay airport tax each time you fly from a
Peruvian airport!
Trains in Peru:
Machu Picchu you reach only by train (or walking the Inka trail). The
other active train line is Puno-Cuzco. All informations on PeruRail
including
timetable and prices are here.
We visited the following cities/areas:
Mail: letters or postcards to Europe 6.50 Soles (about 1,5
Euro, 2
US$). Apparently all our mails arrived after about 14 days (thrown in
into the letter boxes at the main post offices)
Recommended: in Arequipa, Cuzco, Puno, Aguas Calientes, Iquitos (but
not in Trujillo) it was possible to tranfer your photos from digital
camera to hard discs, very useful for security!