Condor Travel, Journeyou, and Going on a Tour versus DIY

Most of my travels, whether local or international, have been do-it-yourself trips where I book my own hotels and transportation, determine which places I want to visit and figure out how to get there, and book my own day tours if any. In this case, I decided to work with travel companies - Condor Travel and Journeyou - to organize practically my entire South America tour, including most flights, hotels, and day tours. So why did I book a full tour this time instead of taking my usual DIY approach?

Iguassu Falls on the Brazil side

For this trip, I considered several things:

• We would take a total of 12 flights, check in 11 times in 10 hotels, and visti several cities in 3 countries.
• Not only is that itinerary jam-packed and exhausting, it would also be possible and even easy for something to go wrong, like missing a flight.
• My mom is not that young anymore, and neither am I. A trip like this would be very physically demanding and potentially stressful to both of us.
• The language barrier would make it a bit more difficult to get around.

Taking a tour would mean that all our flight, hotel, and airport pick-up arrangements would be sorted out and we would always be interacting with people who spoke English well. That said, it would also be a lot more expensive than a DIY trip. We would also have less time to explore freely on our own since we would follow the tour schedule.

Plaza de Armas in Cusco, where we had the most time to explore on our own

It didn't take me too long to decide, though. I determined that the convenience, comfort, and ease of a tour would more than offset the significantly higher cost. The question I then had at that point was from what travel agency should I book a tour?

La Ventana, where we enjoyed a fancy dinner and Tango show as part of our tour

Condor Travel
Since I knew what the places were that I absolutely had to visit, I started doing research on travel agencies that offered a tour of Peru, Brazil, and Argentina that included these places. A few of the options I found were expensive - as expected - and they didn't include a trip to Perito Moreno. A friend of mine who had previously visited South America suggested Condor Travel because she had a good experience with this company. I checked out the Condor Travel website and discovered a Peru-Brazil-Argentina tour that was cheaper than the other tours I found. This 2-week itinerary included almost all of the places I wanted to visit except Perito Moreno. However, their website did also have a Perito Moreno Glacier tour. I thought that maybe I could just book both tours or ask them to combine the two tours together. I then decided to contact them.

Condor Travel provided a tour to Perito Moreno Glacier.

Condor Travel and Journeyou
When I reached out to Condor Travel via email, they responded saying that they have partnered with Journeyou, which is their partner for custom tours in South America (I guess my trip was customized because I wanted to combine two standard tours together). Shortly after that, I was contacted by Angelica from Journeyou. After exchanging emails with Angelica for about a month or so, I no longer got responses from her. I then decided to use the chat function of the Journeyou website to ask if Angelica was still with them and I confirmed that she wasn't anymore. They then assigned Sara to work with me. I forwarded the itinerary that Angelica prepared to Sara and Sara took things forward from there.

Our tour included a visit to Ollantaytambo in Sacred Valley, Peru.

Why do I recommend Condor Travel and Journeyou?

1. They are very patient and helpful.
I mentioned this previously but Sara and I sent more than 200 emails to each other for about a year and a half. A lot of adjustments were made - including providing multiple itinerary options to help me decide, changing flights, rescheduling day tours, and reducing days and adding them back, among other things. In fact, for maybe the first 100 emails, Journeyou had no guarantee that I would book the tour they prepared and yet the continued to patiently communicate with me and make all the changes I was asking them to make. As if that wasn't enough, the price they quoted to me in November 2016 was still the same price I paid in 2018. (The original plan was for us to take this trip in 2017.)

Guides put on our crampons for our mini-trekking in Perito Moreno.

2. The entire tour is very well-organized.
All our airport, hotel, and tour pick-ups were on time. Whenever we would arrive in a new country, the guides who met us at the airport shared our tour schedule with us and what time we would be picked up each day (in Peru, our guide also gave us the train and bus tickets we needed for our Machu Picchu visit). Checking into and out of our hotels was always quick and easy.

Machu Picchu

3. Our guides were friendly and professional and many times, they went the extra mile.
The guides from Condor Travel, Journeyou, and their local partners were amazing. They were friendly, helpful, and punctual,. They had good communication skills and were very knowledgeable as they shared a lot of great information with us about the sights we visited. As if that wasn't enough, each time we were taken to an airport for a flight, our tour guide would always help us check in, either by doing it themselves at the LATAM check-in kiosks or by waiting with us until we had fully checked in. A couple of tour guides even walked with us all the way to immigration. Also, our tour guide in Peru, Karina, even tried to direct traffic when our bus was stuck in a traffic jam. These tour guides are definitely focused on giving guests as great an experience as possible.

Our guide in Brazil took us to Escadaria Selarón, which was not originally part of our itinerary

Our tour officially ended once we arrived in Buenos Aires from El Calafate. At this point, we needed to get our own taxi from the airport to our hotel and for the first and only time in this trip, we needed to check into our hotel by ourselves. It was at this point that I confirmed that I made the right decision in booking a tour; it was not cheap to book a taxi at the airport so I ended up going to a few airport taxi/car operators to compare rates and I had to confirm with passenger service if the prices we were quoted was accurate. There was also a bit of confusion during check-out because apparently my agoda booking required us to pay the hotel directly and I thought that I had already paid for it. I realized then that if we had to always worry about getting taxis - from the airport to our hotel and back - and checking into and out of hotels for our entire stay, we would surely have ended up a lot more exhausted and stressed and we would not have been able to do or see everything that we got to do and see. While booking a tour was very expensive (I did save for more than four years for this trip), it really was the right thing for us.

Sunrise in Patagonia

Condor Travel: https://www.condortravel.com/en
Journeyou: https://www.journeyou.com/en/home

Next: My South America Trip Summary and Final Thoughts

Challenges before and during our South America Trip

Our South America sojourn was a truly incredible experience but with a trip as complex as ours was, we naturally had more than our fair share of challenges. The first came as a consequence of me booking the entire tour online. A friend had taken a tour with Condor Travel and I read many positive reviews about it online but I started to feel some trepidation the moment I had to pay a 50% deposit to lock in my booking. Once I made the full payment, my anxiety grew as I started to have paranoid thoughts. What if I got scammed by a fake travel agent? What if all my bookings were not confirmed and we would arrive at a destination with no flight or hotel reservation? What if our airport and/or hotel pick-ups didn't show up? Or what if we didn't get picked up by our confirmed tours? I didn't personally know my travel agent so if I ran into any problems, I wasn't sure I would be able to get help. In the end, I worried over nothing as our tour went like clockwork but it did add to the stress level prior to our departure.

Machu Picchu

Getting an Argentina visa was also not easy. We faced a few obstacles during our application. First, the Argentina Embassy in Manila is very strict. The first time I submitted our requirements, they were returned to us with details on what we needed to change. For instance, if a field does not apply to us, we shouldn't leave it blank nor write N/A; instead, we had to draw a line in the field, as if we were crossing it out. Also, the field for address in Argentina had to be filled with the complete address of the hotels; I initially wrote 'see attached list of hotels' since we were staying in four hotels in Argentina but I was told that we had to write the complete addresses of all hotels in the provided space. As such, we had to write in very small letters to make sure the full addresses of all our hotels would fit in the space. I also attached an itinerary of our entire tour but I was told that our itinerary had to follow a specific table format.

Caminito Street in La Boca, Buenos Aires

I also faced some scheduling challenges. Visa applicants can only submit requirements from Monday to Wednesday and only between 9AM and 12PM. Upon arriving at the embassy on a particular Wednesday to resubmit our revised requirements, I was told that they were closed due to a holiday in Argentina. That meant I had to go back again the following week. Even then, on this re-submission, I was told that the itinerary I submitted had to include our full itinerary including Peru and Brazil (and not just the Argentina segment). Thankfully, the consul said we could just bring that updated itinerary with us during our interview, which we did. The interview itself was very quick; I think it lasted only 10 minutes. We were then given instructions on how to pay for our visa fees at a nearby bank. Thankfully, our visas were approved. (I did have a back-up plan in case our visas were not approved: my mom and I could either spend more time in Peru and Brazil - both of which Filipinos can visit without a visa - or we could replace Argentina with Bolivia, which doesn't also require a visa.)

La Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires

I also experienced challenges booking our flight from Buenos Aires to Lima. Our Condor Travel/Journeyou tour started in Lima and ended in Buenos Aires but since our round trips flights were from Manila to Lima and back, we needed to fly from Buenos Aires to Lima to head home. I tried booking flights through the LATAM website since that was the most reasonable flight I could find online. However, I ran into two big problems. First, I somehow booked the wrong flight. I was trying to get the one that leaves Buenos Aires at 7:50AM. For some reason, my first few attempts to make the online purchase were unsuccessful. When my purchase was finally processed, I got confirmed on the 3:49AM flight. What??? I don't know if there was a glitch in the reservation or if I accidentally clicked on the wrong schedule due to frustration because my first few purchase attempts failed. The only way for me to correct this flight schedule was to call the airline customer service. Thankfully, they had a hotline with a toll-free number that I could call for free using Google Hangouts. LATAM's customer service was very friendly, helfpul, and efficient and because the flight I wanted had the same cost as the one I mistakenly booked, they could change my flight at no additional cost.

However, I ran into a second problem. Maybe because online purchases of LATAM flights using Philippine credit cards are rare, it seemed that my purchase wasn't approved. I found out because I got an email from LATAM saying I needed to complete my payment for my reservation to be confirmed. What??? I called my credit card and I learned that the charge was still floating and that it might go through soon. Eventually, my payment did go through, but only after a week. And then I got stressed out again because I received an email sayiong that my LATAM flight reservation had already expired so I got very worried that I had just paid for flights that my mom and I couldn't take. I called LATAM again and thankfully, our 7:50AM flights from Buenos Aires to Lima were booked and confirmed. Whew!

Basilica Cathedral of Lima

All that stress came before we had left Manila. :) When we finally arrived in South America, we still ran into some challenges. First of which was how exhausting our trip was. We were there for 17 nights and in that period, we had to take 12 flights and check in 11 different times in 10 different hotels. It didn't help that we had to fly for 35 hours from Manila to Lima and back. I had never before taken as many flights and stayed in as many hotels in two and a half weeks. Needless to say, we were physically spent by the end of our trip.

Inkaterra Hacienda Urumbamba, our hotel for one night in the Sacred Valley

My mom also ended up having a couple of bad injuries. First, she tripped in Aguas Calientes and ended up with wounds and bruises on her knees. Thankfully, she brought a full tube of Fucidin and a lot of adhesive strips as part of her medical kit. The next day, she experienced very bad back pain. We were in Cusco then and we made the mistake of deciding to walk from Palacio del Inka to Sacsayhuaman which was only 1 kilometer away. What we thought was a gradual slope turned out to be quite the uphill battle. The problem was that because my mom wasn't expecting such a steep climb, she wore boots with a bit of heel, making the long walk to Sacsayhuaman a lot more physically demanding. Later that afternoon, she started to feel pain in her lower back and it got a lot worse in the evening. Thankfully, she also brought a lot of Mefenamic acid which proved quite effective since she wouldn't feel her back pain for several hours each time she would take it. It was also lucky that her pain disappeared towards the end of our trip which was significant because it meant that she wasn't impeded by a bad back anymore when we did our mini-trekking in Perito Moreno.

Mini-trekking on Perito Moreno Glacier

I had already written about this previously but our trip to Iguassu Falls was marred by bad weather, preventing us from doing a few things like walking through the upper and lower circuits on the Argentina side and visiting the city center. We also were unable to try the boat ride that can take visitors right under the falls (that said, I'm not sure we would have tried it even if the weather was good because we were there during winter so it was quite cold.)

Iguazu Falls

The winter weather also caused my knuckles to bleed. I think the skin on my hands started to get raw in Iguazu because my hands were exposed to the cold and the rain. I did have gloves but it was difficult to take photos with gloves on so I rarely used them. Things continued to get colder after that. The temperature in Buenos Aires was around 10 degrees Celsius and it was close to zero in El Calafate. By then, my hands were so dry that the skin on my knuckles broke, causing them to bleed. My minor wounds were worth it though because I do love a lot of the photos I took.

My bleeding knuckles and the very dry skin on my hands

The maximum weight limit of our check-in luggage from Buenos Aires to El Calafate also made things difficult. All our other flights within South America were on LATAM and they allowed up to 23 kilos of check-in luggage. However, our flights from Buenos to El Calafate and back were on Aerolineas Argentina which allowed only 15 kilos of check-in luggage. This meant that we needed to pack heavier stuff in our carry-on bags. We also had to repack and reweigh our check-in luggage multiple times to make full use of the maximum allowable weight.

Perito Moreno Glacier

I also had the misfortune of losing my Ipod. I was listening to it during our flight from Lima to Rio de Janeiro but when I was sorting my stuff out at our hotel in Rio that evening, I couldn't find my Ipod anymore. I figure I must have left it at the immigration counter in Rio; I think I had it in my hand after getting off the plane and my guess is that I absentmindedly placed it on the immigration counter as I was being interviewed and I accidentally left it there after my passport was stamped. (I have since purchased a new Ipod Touch despite it being quite expensive because I need to have my music...)

View of Rio de Janeiro from Sugarloaf Mountain

It was pretty exhausting just trying to visualize and write about all these challenges we experienced. :) That said, our trip was still heavily positive and absolutely worth it. (Of course, if we could do this trip all over again, I'd make sure we take a taxi from our hotel to Sacsayhuaman and back down to prevent injury.)

Next: Condor Travel, Journeyou, and Going on a Tour versus DIY

[Argentina] Hotel Kosten Aike in El Calafate

We stayed in Hotel Kosten Aike for two nights in El Calafate. As I had previously written, this is a very charming hotel in a very charming city. The ambience is very warm, cozy, and inviting.

Kosten Aike is only two blocks away from the main street - Av. del Libertador - where you can find many restaurants, cafes, and shops. There is also a souvenir shop at the hotel lobby where I ended up buying several bookmarks (the price of souvenirs here is comparable to the souvenirs outside). I think my mom also bought some items here.

Our stay was made significantly better by the excellent service, which we experienced immediately upon arrival. We got to the hotel at around 9am and the lady at the reception told us we could check in already even if it was several hours before the normal check-in time of 2pm. Furthermore, she offered us free buffet breakfast - she said it was their gift to us - and while my mom and I ate, she had our luggage brought up to our room. Very cool! It wasn't just her, though; the lady at the souvenir shop, the lady at the hotel restaurant where we had dinner, and the gentleman manning the front desk in the evening were all very pleasant and friendly.

Our room which had twin beds was very spacious and comfortable.

There is a game area next to the lobby that features a pool table, a ping pong table, and a foosball table.

There are also a couple of other games set up in lobby the area that guests can play, including chess...

...and a pretty fancy marble solitaire game.

To add even more warmth and personality, there is a lot of interesting art in the corridors.

The hotel also has a really lovely wooden staircase.

One watch-out is the door lock of the hotel rooms. Unlike other hotels, the doors here don't lock automatically when you shut the door. You need to lock it with your room key in the same way you would lock the front door of your house.

Hotel Kosten Aike is a really wonderful hotel and I enjoyed my stay here. I definitely recommend this hotel if you are planning to visit El Calafate.

Hotel Kosten Aike
https://www.kostenaike.com.ar/en-us
Gdor. Moyano 1243, 9405 El Calafate, Argentina
+54 2902 49-2424
reservas@kostenaike.com.ar

Next: Challenges before and during our South America Trip

[Argentina] Loi Suites Iguazu Hotel

Loi Suites was our hotel in Puerto Iguazu in Misiones. This was one of the most beautiful hotels we stayed in during our South America trip. The lobby and the entire hotel is posh and sophisticated yet warm and inviting.

There is a lot of comfortable seating in the lobby area. My mom and I actually spent a couple of hours here in the late afternoon just lounging about while it was raining outside.

The rooms are in separate buildings. To get from one building to the next, you have to pass through wooden suspension bridges amidst the tree tops. Our room was two buildings away from the main lobby so we had to cross two bridges. I'm sure it wouldn't be easy to bring your luggage across - thankfully, our porter helped us - but these bridges do give guests a very unique and fun experience (and it provides a lot of cool photo opportunities).

Loi Suites has a beautiful set of swimming pools. Unfortunately, we didn't get to use them because of the bad weather.

Our room was built cabin-style, making it cozy and comfortable. It was also very spacious and had a beautiful bathroom. (I did find the lighting a bit dim.)

Before spending a relaxed afternoon at our hotel lobby, we enjoyed some coffee at the hotel restaurant. I also ordered a chocolate mousse. It was delicious.

I will say that the problem with this hotel is its location. There are no shops or restaurants nearby. As such, we had dinner at the hotel restaurant. Interestingly enough, there was another Filipino with her non-Filipino husband there and we talked a bit. They were going to Iguazu Falls the next day so we showed some of our pictures and we shared our experiences with them. The food at the restaurant was good and the service was excellent.

While this hotel is very high-end and provides its guests with a very luxurious stay, there is a downside. As mentioned, the location is not ideal since it is a bit isolated. You can take taxi to the city center and I believe the ride will take around 20 minutes. Unlike some other hotels, they don't exchange foreign currency. That said, I do think we wouldn't have felt these drawbacks as much if it wasn't raining heavily; if the weather was good, it would have been easy enough to take a taxi to the city center to exchange money, shop for supplies like water, and have a more inexpensive dinner.

If there are good hotel options at the city center of Puerto Iguazu, it might be better to book a hotel there just so that you can spend a bit less and explore a bit more. That said, Loi Suites is a beautiful place and our stay here was great overall. I also really like the experience of walking on the wooden bridges. If the weather is good, this is a very good place to stay.

Loi Suites Iguazu Hotel
http://www.loisuites.com.ar/en/
Selva Iryapu, Puerto Iguazu 3370, Misiones, Argentina
+54 3757 498300
iguazu@loisuites.com.ar

Next: Hotel Kosten Aike in El Calafate

[Peru] Palacio Del Inka Hotel in Cusco

We stayed at the Palacio del Inka Hotel for 2 nights while in Cusco. I didn't know this then but it is actually part of The Luxury Collection by Marriott.

The exterior of the hotel is a bit subdued but the interior is quite grand and opulent. The lobby is very spacious and inviting.

Looking at their website, it seems that this hotel "was part of the most famous temple of Inca times, QoriKancha (Temple of the Sun), declared National Heritage of Cusco".  As such, traditional Inca stone walls line the building.

There is also a lot of very comfortable seating around the hotel.

A friend of mine who had also stayed here before said that Palacio del Inka is like a museum with a lot of great art pieces throughout the hotel. In fact, there are free tours of the hotel that guests can join. The website says that "195 colonial art works are on display, 60 of which are original paintings of the Cusco School."

Ser Metafisico or Metaphysical Being

There's also a really nice courtyard in the middle of the hotel.

We got a premium room which was very comfortable. I guess this hotel is not part of The Luxury Collection for nothing.

The bathroom was also sleek, clean, and spacious.

Apart from being a really nice hotel, Palacio Del Inka is in a great location, right across Qorikancha and the Church and Convent of Santo Domingo and only a 5-10 minute walk from Plaza de Armas. There are many souvenir shops and dining places around the hotel, including Casa Qorikancha which I had previously written about. The buffet breakfast is also very, very good. I think it may have had the best breakfast and the best coffee among all the hotels we stayed in during our South America trip. I don't know how much our room costs since it was part of our full tour package (I'm sure it's not cheap) but we had a great experience at this hotel and I definitely highly recommend it.

Palacio del Inka, a Luxury Collection Hotel
https://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/cuzlc-palacio-del-inka-a-luxury-collection-hotel-cusco/
Plazoleta Santo Domingo 259, Cusco Peru
+51 84 231961

Next: Loi Suites Iguazu Hotel in Puerto Iguazu

[Peru] Inkaterra Machu Picchu Pueblo Hotel

While in Aguas Calientes, we stayed at the Inkaterra Machu Picchu Pueblo Hotel. This place is highly recommended so I'm happy we had a chance to stay here, even if it was just for one night.

This hotel has the same set up as Inkaterra Hacienda Urumbamba in that the rooms are spread out villa-style and not part of a single building complex. However, unlike its Sacred Valley counterpart which lies serenely in the midst of the Peruvian Andes, Inkaterra Machu Picchu Pueblo Hotel looks as if it is set in a jungle, giving it a completely different feel.

The rooms here are quite spacious and comfortable.

Breakfast is included in the room rate. A bonus for us was that dinner at the hotel restaurant was also included (I'm not sure though if this is a standard room rate inclusion or if it was just part of our tour package). The waiter explained to us that we could choose an appetizer, a main course, and a dessert for a three-course dinner. Cool! For appetizer, I ordered Trout Tiradito with Tiger's Milk, uchucuta sauce, avocado emulsion, Urubamba corn, glazed sweet potato, and smoked house oil.

As I had written earlier, I had Lomo Saltado for my main course.

I can't recall what my dessert was - I think it was chocolate mousse squares with chocolate ice cream and chocolate sauce - but it was very good.

I wrote about this previously but another great thing about this hotel is that upon check-out, you can leave your bags at the reception and they will bring them to the train station 30 minutes before your train leaves. This means that after your visit to Machu Picchu, you don't need to worry about going back to the hotel, getting your luggage, and bringing them to the train station. That's really great service.

It was too bad that our stay at Inkaterra Machu Picchu Pueblo Hotel was very short because I would have loved to enjoy the hotel experience a bit more. There are many different activities that guests can enjoy here, including bird watching, but obviously we didn't have time to do that. Nevertheless, our time here was very good because it was a really nice hotel that allowed us to rest comfortably after our physically challenging Sacred Valley tour and get us ready for our visit to Machu Picchu.

Inkaterra Machu Picchu Pueblo Hotel
https://www.inkaterra.com/inkaterra/inkaterra-machu-picchu-pueblo-hotel/the-experience/
Address: Machu Picchu Pueblo (Aguas Calientes), Aguas Calientes, Peru
Phone: +51 1 6100400

Next: Palacio Del Inka Hotel in Cusco