All's Well That Ends, Well, Badly

So we are on a National Geographic trip to Machu Picchu and the Galapagos.  The proverbial "two birds with one stone" approach to travel.  In fact, we head to Machu Picchu today, and we are in quite the state of high anticipation.

Now that the trip is rolling, things are under control.  However, up to this, Nat Geo did not cover itself in glory.  I'm not sure if, because of COVID they are understaffed, or if the plans for this did not come together well because of COVID (or both) but Nat Geo did a really bad job of communicating with us.  

We've gone on three Nat Geo trips (two through Inspirato and paired with Lindblad, as Lindblad is handling the Galapagos portion), and all three were great.  This one promises to be very good, but there is a sour taste in our mouths on how Nat Geo has botched the run-up to the trip.  And talking to others on the trip, we aren't the only discontented people.

They never got us an actual timeline until very late.  They never sent Carol and I the key email to get to the documents we needed until I called three times and finally spoke to an agent.  Others received it without resorting to panicked calls. 

(Side note: we are on the trip with my business partner Neil Newhouse and his wife Mary, as well as their friends Bruce and Nancy Pasfield, who we had met once before and found quite pleasant and easy to talk with.) 

Well, the lack of communication and inability to get quick, straight answers from Nat Geo threw me off on my planning, so when we crossed the street from the Lima airport to the Wyndham hotel, we found out around 6:30 am that we didn't have a room until the coming evening.  

Carol took over (thankfully, my mind was cooked from less than two hours of sleep).  She booked as a five hour tour of Lima so we weren't just stuck in the lobby all day.  We had breakfast (a non-descript buffet), and then showered in the hotel spa ($16 each, but we had no real choice and let me tell you, it was worth it).

Needless to say, I was a bit cranked up, but Carol saved the day by setting up the tour.  It was a car and driver, and a tour guide, for $65 per person. . .money well spent.  The upside of having our travel plans thrown off in confusion is that we got to see Lima.