14 Day Galapagos Adventure

We just returned from a trip to Peru and the Galapagos Islands. We visited Lima, the Amazon, the Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu, and Cusco, with an overnight stay in Quito.

The Zicasso-recommended travel agency created the perfect itinerary for us. All of the transitioning from place to place was seamless, the hotels were beautiful, the recommendations for restaurants were great, and the guides we had were amazing. They were so enthusiastic and willing to share their knowledge about past and current history. We were so impressed with our travel agency that we are already considering our next journey with them.

First of all - Peru is an amazing country, rich with colorful culture, people and food. I was going there with my lovely wife with usual preparation information gleaned from the internet through various sites and excitement as we prepared for South American Amazon and Machu Picchu, Cusco, Sacred Valley stops on an 11 day journey.Little did I know, I would be immersed in an experience of sight, sound, taste and feel - a journey that caused many moments of deep reflection, appreciation, gratitude, and love for humanity. A huge part of this gratitude for putting together this opportunity goes to our new friends our travel planners at this travel company. They organized a wonderful cross dimensional trip across the jungle and arid lands this country offers, where we had personal and personable, highly intelligent and knowledgeable guides that left us speechless at times as we absorbed all the cultural teachings, offerings (in Spanish and English). One travel planner even met us on our last full day to personally escort our visit with the lovely teachers and children of local village house – an educational charity working in the small town of Oropesa and other villages in the surrounding rural area 25km outside of Cusco, Peru. The charity offers a comprehensive afterschool program in academic and non-academic subjects, along with helping the children with their homework, which takes the burden off the parents. Thank you so so much!!

Our travel planner organized beautiful, amazing tours with Excellent guides: Amazon lodge stay and a local tour company (loved our new friend and guide); Sacred Valley, Maras Salt mines, Moray Ruins, Cusco Community Home visit (so special, honored new friend and guide); Machu Picchu guided tour and next day Sun Gate ascend and walk down to town; Cusco 2 day visit with a San Pedro Market tour and Amazing cooking class (with honored new friend and guide/professional chef).

We HIGHLY HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend this travel company for Peru, and we intend to schedule future Galapagos, Brazil, Chile or Argentina trips with them also – thank you guys so so much!! Words will never express our feelings of gratitude and great fortune working with and getting to know you both (especially our planner – you’re an excellent driver BTW !)

Lastly and Importantly: Bring an appetite to experience the amazingly, indescribable flavors of this country – from the earth to plate, sprinkled with local and unbelievable spiced, herbed flavor diversity, there is a treasure to be had in the various dishes and preparations that reflect local historical significance. We had amazing food throughout our journey and encourage all who visit to expand their heart mind and pallet to capture the culinary opportunity that abounds in Peru!!

This travel agency planned an absolutely flawless 13 day trip of a life time to Peru. From the very beginning of the planning process, the Company worked tirelessly to understand exactly what we were looking for out of our trip and somehow made it happen within our set budget. During our time in Peru, we visited the Sacred Valley, Pisac, Ollantaytambo, Moray, the Moras salt beds, Machu Picchu, Cusco, Paracas, Ica, Iquitos, the Amazon Rainforest, and Lima. Everything about the trip—from the timing of the tours, to the in-country travel, to the hotels—was fantastic. All the logistics were taken care of well in advance, which allowed us to relax and just enjoy our time in Peru. Finally, the private tour guides that the Company arranged for were truly fantastic and very informative. We will not hesitate to work withthis company when planning our next trip to South America.

Zicasso and our travel planner from this travel company created an itinerary to Peru ( Amazon, Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu and Cusco) and Ecuador ( Quito and Galapagos) which was perfectly customized and exceeded our expectations. Our guides were knowledgeable, personable  and catered the tours and excursions to educate and entertain my 13 and 15 year old.  From beginning to end we felt comfortable and confident in our tour operators and guides.  The accommodations were exactly as we requested and exceeded our expectations in two stays. Two weeks before the trip there was political unrest in the area of our Amazon tour.  We were immediately contacted by our travel planner and kept informed.  This required a last minute change to our itinerary and our planner coordinated and arranged our new travel plans seamlessly .Our small cruise ship in the Galapagos was perfect for our family.  There were 20 people on board, including  three families and two tour guides. 

We just returned from a 10 day trip to Peru with 15 family members. Our agent worked with me to plan every detail of the trip.   Everything went according to schedule and without a single hitch!  Our agent lined up a trip to satisfy every single member in our group ages 71 to 10.  We will never forget this trip of a lifetime!  The trip was planned so that we could adjust to the elevation appropriately.  We started with 3 days, 2 nights in the Amazon jungle.  The resort we stayed at and the activities planned were awesome!  The food was good too.  The kids, ages 10-18 loved that part of the trip the best.  We moved on to the Sacred Valley for 4 days, day 1 full day touring at Pisac ruins, Ollantaytambo ruins, day 2 full day touring included Chincero weaving demonstration, Moray ruins & Mara salt mines, day 3 was horseback riding for 11 in our group and the other 4 went whitewater rafting on the Urubamba river, and day 4 was our trip to Machu Picchu.  We moved on to Cusco for 2 nights.  Our first full day in Cusco, we did a 1/2 day tour, and a late afternoon chocolate making event for 1 hour at the Choco Museo.  The next morning we left for Lima, spent 1 night in Lima and did a 1/2 day city tour.  We had the afternoon free and headed to the airport by 7:00 pm for our flights back to the U.S.  We were met by representatives at every location at the times stated.  All our tours were private for our group and the guides were awesome.  The food was so tasty throughout our trip.  Our agent made reservations in advance for our dinners.  Be flexible.  We are used to eating lunches around noon, but while touring, most lunches were around 2-3 pm in the afternoon.  We did have protein bars that we packed in our backpack.  Bonus item working with this agent....my husband had requested a surprise birthday cake for me at the restaurant in our Sacred Valley hotel. Our agent personally ordered a cake from a known bakery in Cusco and drove 1.5-2 hours to our hotel to personally deliver it with a nice birthday present!  That is going way above and beyond!  It was a pleasure meeting him in person!  I would not hesitate to recommend this agent and his company for any travel in South America!