Tour Companies

So we arrive in Lima. The plan is to meet a Holbrook representative who will escort us to our prepaid room for the night. We struggle our with our luggage and reach the exit. Looking at all the drivers reading signs for about 45 minutes. No representatives. I finally call. All of the paperwork with local numbers is in our suitcase. I call the US number. Get through several operators who states she will call back. Open up the locked suitcase to find the local number and the name of the hotel. Finally get a confirmation that the travel company cancelled our pick up since we made our own reservations and we should catch a cab to the hotel.  It was a good thing we were here in January so I knew which cab company to use

No problem as they all have the same rate on the signs they are holding. The cab ride is over an hour and the driver took us to the wrong hotel because there was no street number or name just the hotel name. Just a small detour but in this part of Lima there are a lot of one way streets. So 3 hours after the plane landed we arrive at the hotel and they tell us you have no room reserved.  We are lucky and get the last room. I am not sure what we paid.  At this point in time. I am going to swear off organized tours. This is the most problems we have encountered in the past 7 years of all our international travel

We start day one of Lima. First stop is to find someone to wash our clothes. There is no washer in the hotel and to send it out is so expensive.  Well not only can’t we work the washer when traveling we couldn’t find the laundry although we had a google map I printed at home. Finally someone asked if we needed help and said there’s one in the next block of course we managed to turn the wrong way.  So we have 8 kg of laundry or about 20 pounds. It will be done at 6 pm. We have the day to go to the market and explore. We see other tour members who are also shopping.   A chance to walk about Miraflores and look at the art show in park.

Needless to say we have many treasures that Dan said we absolutely needed.  He is really worse than I am.  Back to pick up the laundry and the laundry lady we gave a tip to was just amazed that we would do that.  It is nice to have clean clothes that don’t smell of Deet.

We have dinner with part of the group and the best Pisco sour for sure. Dinner was so so and we had ice cream for dessert.  So much for day1.