I felt misled about the first night in Lima and the fact that the tour company was not providing a hotel because we had not booked our flights from the US through them. We had already been in south America for 3 weeks by then so I had booked our own flights from Santiago Chile. I believed I had booked an 8 night tour.
I booked the jungle extension which we started from then continued onto the cycling part. Our group was small (only 4 people) but well integrated. I would highly recommend the extension but you may want to put it at the end as starting from it means an extremely long travel with 3 back to back flights. The wildlife and the views we saw were breathtaking. Many boat rides, including a canoe-like one which I dreaded (dislike of small boats) but what we saw more than made up for the stress. Be ready for not as much strenuous as stressful at times cycling due to quite technically challenging very steep descents on gravel/stones which require good mountain bike handling skills. Culturally it is a fantastic trip. I loved the flora & fauna of Costa Rica and have great memories from Colombia but Peru is simply an explosion of colour and the food is ridiculously good. The hiking part was challenging but the views breathtaking. The number of Inka ruin sites we visited BEFORE Machu Picchu was also a positive surprise.
We were met by friendly guides on every step of our tour. We even had one that helped us manage our connecting flight from Lima to Cusco when we arrived in Peru. Also, we had private guides and drivers for every step of the tour which was unexpected. Would definitely use this tour company again.
