Municipality of Arequipa awards the best adventure tourism tour operators of Arequipa

By the Colca Specialist

The Municipality of Arequipa awarded the best adventure tourism tour operators of Arequipa.The awards ceremonial was part of the event called “AQP XTREME SPORTS HALL OF FAME 2013”, event that was considered by the specialists as the event of the year 2013.

Since there are hundreds of travel agencies in Arequipa and 90 percent are brokers and not real tour operators, the main goal of the ceremonial was to introduce the best adventure tourism tour operators to the entire world and to award those whose efforts in favor of the development of ecotourism, sustainable tourism, and adventure tourism are more than outstanding.

The ceremonial took place in the Municipality Palace of Arequipa and it gathered the crème of the crème of the arequipenian adventure tourism world: tour operators, promoters, authorities, among others.

At the end of the ceremonial the representatives of the tourism department of the Municipality of Arequipa presented the three inductees to the AQP XTREME SPORTS HALL OF FAME 2013, promoters of adventure tourism and sportsmen who are considered as icons of adventure sports and tourism  in Arequipa such as the mountainbiking record killer Guillermo Carlos RendónCuadros .

During the ceremonial special awards were given to a rescue team unit of the national peruvian police and to the mountainclimbing guide of the year: Mr EloyCacya, a mountainclimbing guide from Colca Valley who was declared as mountainclimbing guide of the year thanks to his successful work done in the rescue of Ciro Castillo Rojo  , as student lost in the walls of Colca Canyon (found dead) and thanks to the rescue of the body of Oliver Toledo, a student who got lost in a religious pilgrimage to the Sanctuary of Chapi.

The awarded ones were the following:

THE BEST ADVENTURE TOURISM TOUR OPERATORS

- ZarateAventuras (Mountainclimbing)

Manager :Sr.CarlosZárate.

- Colca Trek. (Trekking)   

Manager: Mg Vlado Soto.

- Naturaleza Activa (Mountainbiking)

Manager: Sr. Eduardo Sánchez Bendezú.

- Expediciones y Aventuras.(River Rafting)

Manager: Sr Gustavo Rondón Alvarez.

- Colca Horse El Herraje (Horseriding in Colca Valley)

Manager: Srta Sofía Solange Málaga Cáceres.

- Inka Expeditions (School Ecoturism Fam Trips)                                            

Manager: Sr Gonzalo Ruy  Zevallos Portilla.

- La Casa de Mauro. (River Rafting in Majes River)

Manager: Sr Maurilio AmilcarZuñiga Medina.

THE BEST ADVENTURE TOURISM PROMOTERS

-Lic. Humberto Huamaní Luque.

-Ing. Mauricio de Romaña Bustamante.

-Antrop. Pablo Masías Núñez del Prado.

-Sr. Guillermo Carlos Rendón Cuadros.

-Sr. Maurilio Amílcar Zúñiga Medina.

-Sr. Miguel ÁngelFernández Cayetano

-Sr. Walter Valderrama.

-Sr- Gonzalo Ruy Zevallos Portilla.

-Sr. Manuel Vera Mamani.

-Sra Sofia Chislla Callo.

THE BEST ADVENTURE TOURISM EVENTS

-Primera Expedición Peruano-Europea de Canotaje de Altura DISCOVERY (Colca Rafting)  

        

-Carrera de Ciclismo más alta del Mundo INKABIKE 2003 (Dircetur).

-Carrera de Ciclismo Sobredosis de Adrenalina 2004 (Dircetur).

-Raid de Campeones Mallku Jaqe 2005 (Dircetur).

-Raid de Ciclismo Uniendo las Maravillas del Mundo Colca-Cotahuasi (Municipalidad Provincial de Caylloma-Autocolca).

SPECIAL AWARDS

-Eloy Cacya Cárdenas declared as MOUNTAINCLIMBING GUIDE OF THE YEAR 2013.

-Unidad de Salvamento y Rescate de Alta Montaña USAM.

THE BEST ECOTURISM TV PROGRAMS

-Programa de TV El Caminante.

-Programa de TV Pureq Runa.

-TV UNSA.

-Programa de TV Reportaje al Perú.

THE BEST MUNICIPALITIES OF THE YEAR 2013

-Municipalidad distrital de Cayma

-Municipalidad distrital de Yanahuara

-Municipalidad distrital de Selva Alegre

-Municipalidad distrital de Mollebaya

-Municipalidad distrital de Quequeña

-Municipalidad distrital de Yarabamba

-Municipalidad Provincial de Islay

-Municipalidad distrital de Huanca

-Municipalidad distrital de Lluta

-Municipalidad distrital de Yura

-Municipalidad distrital de Sibayo

-Municipalidad Provincial de Cotahuasi –La Unión

-Municipalidad provincial de Castilla

-Autocolca.

THE INDUCTEES TO THE AQP XTREME SPORTS HALL OF FAME 2013

-Maurilio Amilcar Zuñiga Medina.(River Rafting)

-Gustavo Rondón Alvarez.(River Rafting and Kayaking)

-Guillermo Carlos Rendón Cuadros.(Mountainbiking)

Tawantinsuyo Tour: calamity tours on double decker buses

Tawantinsuyo Tour Not a good option in Arequipa

By Shawn Matson

The fever of the double deckers has arrived to Arequipa few years ago. Now we have several companies that offer the same service which I am going to speak about. Let´s speak about Tawantinsuyo Tour.

Tawantinsuyo is one of the travel agencies that offers this kind of service. The only difference with other companies is just the color of the buses: there are yellow,orange,green and the blue ones of Tawantinsuyo Tour.

Tawantinsuyo is the cheapest and its publicity can be found in all the travel agencies of Arequipa.When you ask for a city or countryside tour the one in charge of the travel agency will show you one of the pamphlets of the different companies available and there you will find the pamphlet of Tawantinsuyo Tour. (See picture above).

Why the travel agencies sell its product? Because it is very cheap and it offers good commissions to the street vendors and travel agents.

The quality of the service is terrible! The tours offered are more shopping oriented and the information provided during the tour is very poor compared with a guidebook! Lots of stops in very touristic places and no good information about Arequipa. I took other tour with another company and it is the same so I don´t reccomend you my friends to take these kind of tours done with double decker buses.

When we departed from Arequipa I was eager to see the countryside of Arequipa and we were taken to a place called “Carmen Alto” a place where you can see Arequipa´s valley. The info provided as I told you before was very basic and when we descended from the bus we were just invited to get inside the place to take pictures and they showed us the store in case we wanted to buy something. That was all. There was no interest of the guide in providing information.Not at all.

I thought I was the only one upset about the disasterous tour I took but not. There were other people who agreed with me that we were guilty of having bought the same tour. There was a family who bought it in Colonial Tours other people bought the tour in other places but we ended traveling together with the same company.

The city tour can be donde by ourselves with a very guidebook and in case you want to visit the countryside of Arequipa I recommend you to go to Sogay (this place is called Little Colca) or to Yarabamba or Chiguata where you are going to see the real countryside of Arequipa and not a touristic shopping center. Don´t forget that your holidays are important and don´t be fooled like us with these poor quality tours of TAWANTINSUYO TOUR.

COLCA LODGE: AN UNSAFE HOTEL IN COLCA VALLEY

by the Colca Specialist

Colca Lodge Hotel is one of the most well-known hotels in Colca Valley. If you look at the pictures in the brochures is the perfect palce for our holidays but everything is not perfect.
Colca Lodge has a very poor security. The Colca Lodge was attacked once by a group of criminals who robbed all the money and valuables from all the tourists that were there that day.

The other problem is that these beautiful place suffered several fires in many oportunities.
The question is who authorizes the construction of these kind of hotels? Which are the safety requirements for a touristic hotel? Is there any kind of institution that supervises the total fullfilment of these requirements? I don´t think so. The access road to these hotel is for an acrobat driver.

These guys should realize that the have to improve the quality of their services and specially the SAFETY. The main problem of these guys is that they are just interested in making money and they don´t care about the narrow an dangerous access road they have neither about the safety.

The following is a report about a couple of clients who suffered a fire in Colca Lodge Hotel in Colca Valley.It was taken from TRIP ADVISOR.It seems that the peruvian authorities specially an institution called DEFENSA CIVIL (CIVIL DEFENSE) are doing nothing at all.
We hope the authorities take measures against the hotels and lodges that are unsafe for our visitors.

The Colca Specialist


“Bad experience”
Reviewed 29 June 2008

Hotel is in a beautiful--but secluded setting in Colca Canyon.Booked a suite with a fireplace(hotel has no heating system) It gets cold in the room by the late afternoon. While at dinner,the roof of our room caught fire from sparks from the chimney that landed on our reeded roof. Our bedroom was under that roof--Hotel staff was great --they retrieved our belongings from the 1st floor and put out the fire. We were put in another room for the night--all luggage was ruined by smoke and had to be left at the hotel.

I would recommend that you stay in Chivay when you visit the condors in the canyon. You will have a selection of restaurants--and medical help if you need it
For a private guide with driver in the canyon--I highly recommend Guillermo Rendon Cuadros--speaks good English--very knowledgeable about the area--You can contact him by e-mail @
mountainzone_054@yahoo.com or through www.Peruforless.com