Amazon Trails Peru — Local services in Distrito de Cusco

My wife and I recently did a 7 day, 6 night trip into the Peruvian Amazon with this company. I can't say enough good things about the staff (van drivers, boat drivers, assistants and our guide Carlos were all excellent). Unfortunately I can't say the same about the owners/business practices of ATP.

The first issue came immediately after booking our trip when I attempted to pay the deposit. Rather than simply provide my credit card to pay, I was instructed to do an international wire transfer using a website called Xoom. After spending nearly an hour trying and failing to input the information provided me by ATP I contacted Ulrike (the owner) to let her know it wasn't working. She got back to me quickly telling me that I should keep trying as none of her other customers had this issue. I went back to the Xoom website and still received error messages, so I contacted her a second time. She suggested an alternative website called TransferWise. I spent another hour attempting to send the money, again receiving error messages. I contacted her a third time, again being told that I was the only one having this issue and to keep trying.

I continued trying to pay the deposit with no success. I had to email to company no less than 5 times before Ulrike conceded that something was wrong on their end, apparently the rules/laws regarding international wire transfers had changed and she offered me the option to simply send the money through Paypal. Not a major issue, but it was an unusually frustrating process for something I felt should've been very simple.

Eventually got the deposit paid and confirmed the trip.

Unfortunately, 4 days before flying to Peru and less than a week before our tour was scheduled to begin I received an email from Ulrike notifying me that the other group scheduled to come on our tour had backed out and that we would need to pay an extra $500 if we wished to go on the tour as scheduled. Other dates were offered, however with such short notice we were unable to rearrange our time in Peru to make that work.

I feel this was a completely unprofessional way to handle the situation. If the other groups' cancellation made the scheduled trip unprofitable for the company I feel that cost should be absorbed by the company, not my wife and I as we had already paid a deposit to confirm our attendance. Ulrike disagreed and told us that we could either pay the $500 or cancel our tour entirely. Given that cancelling our accomodations and rearranging our trip would cost us more we reluctantly agreed and absorbed the additional costs ourselves.

Upon arrival in Peru we met with the operators to do our orientation and pay our remaining balance, unsurprisingly at this point there was another issue. Our remaining balance was nearly $4000 and they insisted we pay this in cash. I explained to them prior to arrival that this was a large sum to carry around in cash and to please allow us to pay with a credit card. In my opinion, in the year 2022 a professional organization should be able to accept such a large sum with credit card. It offers protection both from theft and in the case that something goes wrong on the tour. We were told that credit cards "present too many problems" (for them) and that we would need to collect the balance in cash. Furthermore, it was difficult for us to obtain that much cash while abroad. ATM's charge fees and have minimum withdrawal amounts, to which we were told that we could simply do multiple withdrawals. When we pointed out this would again cost us significanly more money than quoted we were met with indifference by the owners. The woman at the office (not the owner) was very sympathetic and attempted to call Ulrike but she refused to answer the multiple calls we placed. After emailing Ulrike we were again told that if this was an issue the tour would be cancelled.

Eventually we obtained the cash and proceeded with our tour. I can't say enough good things about the guides and drivers, but if money is a concern I would avoid ATP at all costs. I certainly wouldn't use their...

I can only agree with the previous reviews, which pointed out that Ulrike, the owner, shows frustratingly poor goodwill, if anything on (or before) your tour goes wrong.

Be prepared to pay more than you expected (in my case around 400USD more for the 7-day Manu NP tour; because someone canceled and the only way of making the tour happen was to pay extra) and say goodbye to your money, if you have to cancel the trip (in my case 4 day Inca Trail) on short notice due to (in my example) severe sickness.

They did give me an alternative of going to Aguas Calientes by train, sleep there and hike up to Machu Picchu on the next day but the hostel was not clean, cold, noisy (bar street/thin glaswindows) and had insufficient blinds/curtains. Also the guided group I was supposed to join at Machu Picchu didn't show up after more than 70 minutes of waiting; texts to the guide and office remained unanswered...so I decided to get my own tourguide and to settle the amount with Amazon Trails Peru. But again, huge lack of goodwill - the owner refused to refund me the total amount and only agreed to make up for half of it.

The tour I did itself (7 day Manu NP) was sheer amazing, magical, wonderful and I could not have wished for a better guide (Carlos), cook (Alberto) or Car/boatdrivers (Eric, Mario, Hago).

I for sure wouldn't use ATP's...

We have done a 4 days/3 nights in the Manu Park with the Amazon Trails Peru Tour Operator. We had really great time and this thanks to the team with us, especially Carlos our guide who was really perfect, spotting for us all the birds, butterflies, insects, monkeys, caimans…, he was really attentive with our kids and his explanations were great. We have seen much more than expected, our drive Aggripino and cook Paolito were also really nice with super driving and really good foods. The bamboo lodge was supra great full of sounds from the nature and the Amazonia lodge was also perfect location to explore in the Manu Park. We are warmly recommending the Amazon Trails Peru...