Would not recommend this company to anyone if you care about safety. We had a harrowing experience during our trip where literally lightning struck us when we made it to the base camp. We had a group of 11 people, and 5 of us were severely injured, burned, unconscious, and unable to move. It was a full-blown emergency, and some of us had to perform CPR on our friends.
We told our guide immediately that we needed to get down the mountain because it was an emergency. With very limited support or direction from the agency, we walked to a pick-up point where a vehicle could reach us and then waited over three hours for help. 5 people had to be carried to that point because they couldnât walk. The agency claimed they couldnât get a car up due to the weather, but their complete lack of urgency and communication made everything worse.
They eventually said that only the 4severely injured people would be taken down by vehicle, and the rest of us had to walk or pay an outrageous 5000 Quetzales. This was insane, because most of us were also affected, some couldnât walk, and all of us were in pain. We ended up negotiating with another agency and paid 3000 Quetzales to be taken down, because our own agency was unresponsive and nowhere to be found. ( they claim they had to move the world to get us down)
Once we got to the agency, things escalated. The owner greeted us with zero empathy and immediately told us we owed 7000 Quetzales, even though we had been clearly told the cost was 3000. When we questioned it, she claimed she had messages proving otherwise , but no one in our group had ever seen or received those messages. She also said if we didnât pay, sheâd be the one who had to cover the cost and mention that it wasnât her fault that the injured people couldnât negotiate.
To make things worse, the guide who helped take the injured group to the hospital told some of us that we didnât have to pay anything. But then others were still charged. One friend was charged 550 Quetzals when dropped off at the hospital, and another was charged 800 Quetzals just to retrieve his belongings the next day. To make it worse the started to spam my phone with calls and called multiple friends that were still in the hospital to charge the remaining of the money. There was clearly no consistency, and no coordination.
We later found out that the private road used to evacuate us usually costs 2000 Quetzales with your own vehicle, but the agency claimed it was 10,000.i get it that we used their cars, but still this was an emergency. It felt like they were trying to profit off our emergency taking advantage of a horrible situation to squeeze money from a group of people who had just been struck by lightning.
Itâs clear this agency prioritizes money over safety, communication, or human decency. The bare minimum would have been to help us get down safely and not charge us anything extra in such a traumatic situation.
To be clear: Mother Nature is unpredictable, and no one is blaming the company for the lightning strike that was an accident beyond anyoneâs control. But the chaos, miscommunication, and complete lack of empathy afterward were unacceptable and deeply disappointing.
I will not recommend this agency to anyone. Please think twice before booking with them. Yes itâs pretty and everything, but in case of an emergency I Imagine thatâs how you will be treated.
Plus they didnât have enough after calling us liars, he reached out days after the incident harassing me, because yes this is harassment. He has no right to contact me after the payment was done and the ridiculous fees and lack of empathy. And yes, the guide stay to make sure the could get money out of the injured people,...
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