Adventures Huayhuash — Attraction in Huaraz

I did the 8 day Huayhuash trek. The positive stars were because of: Cui (assistant along the trek) and the camp that was set up every time in advance as well as the nice lunch and dinner.

I paid 1750, but I didn't like that every person in the group paid something else.

The lack of 3 stars goes directly to the guide Margarita: She had no map and she could not read my offline map, which put a big question mark on her skills. I highly advise checking in advance if your guide indeed has a licence for guiding or is just a local. Day 1 she spent talking on the phone, not with us. Also all info we were given about the trek, was just info about the km and elevation at the start of the day, not even once she told us stories about the hike or the place we visited. Nothing. One evening she made a comment we are late for breakfast (we started waking up a late for after she was never on time anyway - she was the chef as well). In the following days, we made sure we are always on time but instead breakfast was always served at least 30 minutes later and we were leaving the camp an hour later than initially planned. I don't mind South American "punctality" but if you leave comments on us being late, at least you have to be professional about it and follow timing. I clearly told her that as a group and I have problems with some organisational stuff and we can discuss them in the evening, she only came to us a day later to ask us (right before going to bed). For me, this is absurd. Client tells you they have problems and you go for a discussion a day later? Then she claimed she is very busy with guiding and cooking so she didn't have time to have this meeting every day. If you want to - you can talk during the trek, small breaks, there is no such thing as "I don't have time to have a meeting with you". That same day she even took a nap at lunch, so we had to wake her up to continue the trek. We were a group of 6 clients, not many, but at least 5 times she would suggest "let's go" after a short break when one of us is clearly missing (baño time). It takes 2 seconds to count us. A day after Suila pass I told her that I didn't enjoy the lunch break because at Suila pass it was very windy and I am sick now. She started screaming in front of everyone claiming I was disrespectful and the reason we had lunch there was "because the other clients were hungry and lunch is always organised at Siula pass". So what? If there is thunderstorm, do we have lunch there too just because people are hungry and we organize lunch there? No logic. She came to me afterwards to apologise for her attitude, but I think the apology should have been in front of everyone after she humiliated me in front of everyone. Breakfast was very basic (bread and milky soup) until we said so. Then afterwards chocolate granola, eggs started to magically appear. It felt like they had been hiding stuff from us. Asking for water was always pain in the ... Everytime we asked for it, we were "greeted" with an annoyed face. On day 2, I felt sick. In no way she encouraged me to stay, instead she asked a couple of times if she should call a driver to pick me up and that the next day is 9 hours of hiking, very hard (that was not true, we hiked probably for 5 hours, the rest was breaks). Following the "lunch" dispute, next day she also humiliated me - I asked her when lunch today would be, and she replied "later than planned because we chose not windy place for you, everyone else is fine with having lunch wherever, only you have a problem with the location". On day 2, I was in the cooking tent, and she said to the others "Be careful, she speaks Spanish" right after they the other locals entered the tent - it felt like they talk behind our back, so it was like "you have to mind your words now, since she can understand us".

There were more things as well, but there is a limit of the comment so I will stop here. To sum up: Margarita should really go through a course to be a guide, the lack of professionalism was...

Absolutely disappointed with this company. We were really looking forward to our Santa Cruz 4d/3n -trek, and thus wanted to book it with a reputable (based on google maps and tripadvisor reviews) company. We had also heard that the trekking companies in Huaraz also sell other companies tours, so when we went to Huayhuash Adventures offices, we said that we want to take THEIR OWN tour, and especially DON'T WANT to go with Galaxia Expeditions, which has generally bad reviews.

Well, guess where we ended up? You guessed right: to a Galaxia Expeditions tour! There was no language barrier, the guy at the desk spoke perfect English, so I guess Galaxia Expeditions was just the only tour operator that was leaving on the day we suggested, so they just took our money and lied to us that they weren't even co-operating with Galaxia, since they had had "bad experiences with them" (direct quote). I wonder how the hell we ended up in Galaxia's tour, if Huayhuash doesn't even co-operate with them!?

The Galaxia -trek was like a 2-3/5 trek: tents were okay, equipment bad-okay (depending on how fast you got to the camp to pick), food was okay, guide was completely terrible. Santa Cruz trail itself is of course absolutely gorgeous.

So, when we confronted Huayhuash Adventures about selling us to a tour operator we EXPLICITLY said we didn't want to go with, and which is a lot worse than Huayhuash is supposed to be, they were "very understanding" about the conditions on the trek, but kept holding on to our money like vultures. In my opinion they should have tried to make things right since the mistake (or more probably: lies) was clearly theirs, but after two long visits to the office, they offered to reimburse us 50 soles out of 900 soles we paid. You can think for yourself, if you'd be happy with that kind of compensation. We definitely weren't.

What a joke of customer service. Maybe, MAYBE their longer treks, that they operate themselves, are better, but selling us to a company we especially said we didn't want to go with is such a breach of trust, that I wouldn't buy anything from these guys, and I wouldn't be surprised if the good reviews are actually fakes after the lies we had to listen to.

Choose some...

A good experience that transformed into a very bad one because of the stealing of clothes, don't think the guide and agency can't be trusted. We did the 8 days trek, with Wilder. The 1st day, they told us some of the donkeys died (?), so we had to wait and camp at the starting place without doing anything for 24 hours (while waking up at 3am to get to that place), and the second day we had to trek double the kms because of that, without any compensation. Then the 5th day, we camped in a village, and at last minute the guide told us we have to change the camp location to sleep in somebody's garden instead of the public camp. I left my jacket in the camp, but it disappeared and wasn't there at the next camp the next day. The guide called his friend who hosted us in his garden in the village and confirmed the jacket was there, and asked me money to send it back to Lima or Huaraz. Then after we finished the trip, I lost any contact from the guide for a while, 2 weeks later he told me he would get back the jacket himself on his next Huayhuash trip. 2 more weeks later, he told me he went to the village, but did not take the jacket because it was "damaged", without any proof or photos. Then, after 3 more weeks or waiting, he told me he went back to the village, but did not find the jacket nor the person who apparently left for another city (forever?). After months of discussions with the agency, the conclusion is that the jacket (worth almost as much as the cost of the guided trek) just disappeared without trace, and the money I had to give the guide to pay for its transport was never returned to me either. If you book with them, be very careful of your belongings! Also know that if you book with other agencies in Huaraz, there's a high chance they will delegate the tour to this one, so make sure to check who your guide will be, as well as where you will be sleeping...