Why Cachi Guides Rock

Machu Picchu on a cloudy day with text overlay Why Cachi Guides Rock
Welcome to back to the Peru Travel Podcast. You can subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google, TuneIn, or listen in the media player above.

The guys continue to reminisce about their recent trip to Peru. The guys test out their newly offered Extrema Inca Tour with one of their guides while in Peru. They go whitewater rafting, hiking, learn about coffee, and go ziplining. After the experience, they contrast and compare to what you may get compared to other tour companies in Peru.

They talk to a few groups who are doing a similar tour with another company. Come to find out the other company uses hotels with cold showers and has no WiFi. In addition, the other companies guide doesn’t speak much English and even when they were supposed to get a guided tour of Machu Picchu…… the tour guide bounced.

The guys talk about how this will not happen with Cachi. You will have warm showers, nice beds, WiFi, English-speaking tour guides, and your guide will be with you every step of the way.

At the end of the day, a trip to Peru is a trip of a lifetime and they want to make sure that you are taken care of when you go.

Be sure to visit us at our homepage or email us at info@cachilife.com for any questions or topics that you want us to cover.

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Below is a transcript which has been modified for your reading pleasure.

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Transcription

David Kosloski: 00:03 What’s going on everyone? Welcome back to the Peru Travel Podcast. I’m your host, David Kosloski alongside me is Charlie Thompson, and today we’re going to talk and brag about why Cachi tour guides are the best in the biz.

Charlie Thompson: 00:17 We are back baby. Feels good to be back.

David Kosloski: 00:21 That’s right. Back home. Guess who’s back, back again? So here’s the thing. We’re going to brag a little bit because it’s not us and we can do that. It’s okay. We don’t necessarily hire these people. These aren’t people that we hire. We work very closely with David, who we spoke of multiple times, a blog post about him. David is our owner. If you will in Peru. And David hires these people. Now we’re going to brag about the people he hires and why Cachi is one of the best travel agency groups right now in Peru. And I’m being cocky and saying that, but it’s the damn truth. And I’ll tell you why. It’s the truth. It is. It absolutely is the truth. When we were in Peru this last trip, we told David on our trip, our adventure. We did what we call the Extreme Inca Tour. Okay. Everyone else has a different name for theirs. We call ours the Extreme Inca Tour because we’re different.

Charlie Thompson: 01:14 Can we talk about that real quick? Because that tour was unbelievable.

David Kosloski: 01:17 It was incredible. I don’t know how he talks about it though unless we get to show them. You know what I mean?

Charlie Thompson: 01:21 Well, this is something else that we’re adding to the website.

David Kosloski: 01:23 It’s on there.

Charlie Thompson: 01:25 It’s on the booking, but the details are coming soon.

David Kosloski: 01:27 That’s right. They’re coming soon.

Charlie Thompson: 01:29 First of all, you start out at over 15,000 feet and bike all the way down a mountain.

David Kosloski: 01:35 You literally sit on a bike.

Charlie Thompson: 01:35 I felt like a 12-year-old kid again. It was just so awesome.

David Kosloski: 01:39 It was. It was like being reborn, but the thing is is that when we did this tour, we wanted to make sure that specific aspects of it allowed us to sort of connect with other tour groups. Why? Because we want to do some case studies, right? Why does the guy in Thank You for Smoking sit in coach? It’s because he wants to convince people to start smoking cigarettes. And so he’s like, “I want to know what my demographic is.” Right. So, we went in and were, “hey, we want to be with other groups if possible at some times throughout our trip.” So the first day of our trip we did whitewater rafting. Charlie and I are pretty social butterflies. So we instantly met some groups. I met a girl from San Francisco or… I met a group from… Where were they from? They were from the New England area. Boston, I want to say. And the group from New York, they were originally from San Francisco, correct? Right. Actually, my group from Canada. We’re mixing up places. Anyway, there were so many people that we met.

Charlie Thompson: 02:34 We met a lot of people.

David Kosloski: 02:35 Yeah we did.

Charlie Thompson: 02:36 But these two groups are very important because they gave us a lot of information, some things that we just couldn’t believe were happening. So that’s what we’re going to talk about. And that explains why Cachi’s the top notch place to go with.

David Kosloski: 02:51 That’s right. And on top of that, really I think it just comes down to giving a care almost said a bad word, but we care. Right? That’s really at the end of the day, it comes down to these people, just don’t care. Most people just don’t care. I think that’s really the biggest thing that they see. They see you guys as paychecks, they see the travelers as paychecks and that’s just not the case. Here’s the deal. At the end of the day, we charge adequately so that way our employees get paid a great rate to be able to support their family and continue to progress to put their kids through school, put their kids through college. You got to understand school systems in Peru are a lot different than the United States. People don’t just get to go down the street to the local high school, sometimes they got to send their kids off to other cities and pay for dorms and things of that nature to have an education.

David Kosloski: 03:34 I digress. We’re not going to go in that deep. But that’s what we’re dealing with here. Okay. We got to make sure that we’re supporting the locals so they can continue to grow and develop. So that being said, all of our guides speak English and if they don’t, they’re shadowing something. I might add that here because I forgot to mention this too. We have a program that’s in place that basically allows other guides to shadow, to learn better English to grow while they’re in school and things of that nature.

Charlie Thompson: 03:58 It’s like an internship essentially. It’s a paid internship. These assistants come on board to learn the Cachi way. The standard has been set by David. David in Peru, our guide manager. The guy who owns it in Peru. He set the standard of the quality that should be presented. And it’s because in life you get what you pay for, right? And, but not only that, but we believe that if you take care of people, they’ll take care of people for you too. That’s right. So, and that’s just the way the world works.

David Kosloski: 04:34 Absolutely. They care a lot about you guys. I mean, they care a lot about every traveler that travels with us. But that being said, we want to start with the good or the bad. Want to start with the Cachi? I think we end with the Cachi. What do you think?

Charlie Thompson: 04:43 Let’s end with the Cachi.

David Kosloski: 04:44 Gotcha. All right. So here we met a group, Kevin and Kara won’t name any names or just initials. Kevin and Kara. We met a group, Kevin and Kara. We met another group of two guys that are from Canada. Wonderful gentleman. I didn’t even get their names and I didn’t even get their emails. But these two guys, they’re dating for about 15, 16 years, something like that. They’ve been dating for a long time. I’m surprised they’re not married. Came down from Canada.

David Kosloski: 05:10 And the first thing they say to us is, as I talked to him. “Hey,” I look back and “Hey where you guys from?” Chit chatting. So how’s the trip been so far? He’s like, well, the second that we arrived, our tour guide didn’t speak English, so we have absolutely no idea what’s going on and we’re just kind of being sent by the way of using our hands to communicate. That’s one issue. Okay. We’ve got plenty more. So that’s mind-blowing in itself. The fact that the person doesn’t speak English.

Charlie Thompson: 05:38 And while you’re having that conversation… Look, I’m a social butterfly, but I just so happened to be wearing my American flag swim trunks because we’re going white water rafting and that’s just what I happened to bring. I’m kinda proud of where I come from. And so actually Kara, this other couple that we met, she ended up breaking the ice and she’s like, “where are you from? Ha Ha.” And I was like, “Oh, you know, I’m from England. Obviously.” Just joking around with them and so we started talking and the first thing they said is their guide spoke a little bit English, but they literally just dropped them off and gave them bikes and said, “here you go.”

David Kosloski: 06:18 There you go. You’re at the top of a mountain right now and cars are whizzing by you. And they gave them bikes and were like “have fun. See you later.” Like what? There’s so many things wrong with that situation. This is the part where I get stressed out because I’m, “this is not supposed to happen.” You paid good money to do something and now they’re just, “hey see you later man. Have a good day.” So besides that, they end up biking down by themselves. We all hop on this bus and we go whitewater rafting. Probably the better experience for these people. But then we start talking about their hotel and I get to ask him questions. Actually, I didn’t even ask questions. What I had said was “I can’t wait to get back and take a hot shower.” That’s all I said. I want to get back and take a hot shower.

Charlie Thompson: 07:03 Yeah, who doesn’t want to take a nice hot shower after white water rafting.

David Kosloski: 07:07 That’s right. And I’m going to message or phone call my fiance, Canadians look back and say, you got WiFi. I said, well, my phone has service, but I’m using the hotel WiFi and they’re blown away that I have WiFi. “You have WiFi?” It’s this big ordeal. Charlie’s is a different reaction about their bed… Excuse me their shower. We’ll get to the bed in a second. Their shower. They’re, “you have hot water?” They’re freaking out. They’re blown away. And as we start to talk about the hotel room, we start to realize the bed that they’re sleeping on has mold on the pillows. The Canadians have cockroaches in their room. Bugs everywhere. So we’re, we’re literally, we’ve got, what was her name? Deanna? Deanna. We’ve got Deanna cooking us food, hooking us up with Pisco Sours. Kevin and I again, full transparency here.

David Kosloski: 08:03 Okay. We picked this hotel. This is the hotel we send all of our guests to. The first thing that you enter in is Santa Rosa. When you enter in Santa Rosa and this is the hotel that we pick, right? So the hotel that we pick is a newer hotel, and Kevin and I thought that we saw bedbugs. Okay. We got very, very nervous that we saw bedbugs. And I’m not gonna put this hotel on blast because literally when we looked we couldn’t find any. There’s going to be bugs once in a while.

Charlie Thompson: 08:35 It was all in their head.

David Kosloski: 08:36 Yeah. I mean I saw bugs. But I’ve never seen bedbugs. And Kevin had claimed that he saw one too, but he only saw one and you know. Who knows really what the situation was. But the point is, is that she handled it very, very appropriately.

David Kosloski: 08:51 No big deal. Let me switch you guys rooms. We opened up the next room, open up the beds, nothing there. In fact, she gave us an even bigger room. You know you’re gonna have to lower your expectations a little bit in these smaller towns because the hotels are not your five-star hotel. They’re very, very small like motels. But either way, it was beautiful. The room was great. We slept fine. Woke up the next morning, wasn’t a big deal. And then we’re on to day number two of the trip.

Charlie Thompson: 09:16 At this hotel though, I want to speak highly of Deanna because she made us meals but like really good meals. A lot of it was Peruvian food, but she gave us a whole half a chicken with the leg and the thigh and everything and it was cooked very well. Seasoned. Amazing. It was a really, really good meal.

David Kosloski: 09:35 Yeah, she’s great. And Charlie even forgot his flip-flops and she walked us through the town. She was actually gonna go by herself.

Charlie Thompson: 09:40 She was.

David Kosloski: 09:41 And we were like, no, we’re going to walk with you because we feel horrible. She walked us through the town, helped negotiate prices for flip flops for Charlie, so that way he didn’t have to go out barefoot because he forgot his in Cusco. The service again, it comes down to this level of, are you going to take care of people because they’re going to take care of you? Yes, I’m going to. And that is the experience that we had is that these people were really glad we were there. In fact, people will try to come and eat dinner with us and Deanna was like, “No, no, no, no, no, leave, leave, leave, you’re not able to eat here.” They just didn’t take care of the service that well. And they were rude or they feel like they felt like they were expecting something and that’s just not how people operate typically.

Charlie Thompson: 10:17 And uh, our guide stayed with us.

Charlie Thompson: 10:19 That’s right.

David Kosloski: 10:20 Our guide who spoke English just so happen to stay in the hotel with us.

Charlie Thompson: 10:24 You’re going to experience the same thing.

David Kosloski: 10:25 Yeah. Your guides are gonna experience the same thing as you. Our guide did not leave our side and we’ll talk more about that coming up. In fact, he was the only guide on the whitewater rafting. The guide will go with you to whitewater rafting. He may not necessarily get in the boat with you, but he will guide you through there. He’ll translate for you if needed, but he’s going to hold your hand every step of the way. You’re never going to feel alone you’re gonna be with your best friend, whoever that is, that’s with you. In this case on this specific tour, we’re probably gonna have Frank, who’s David’s brother. Great guy. Super Funny. Got lots of jokes. You’re gonna have a good time. Which brings us now to day number two. We wake up, we eat a great breakfast, we get in the van and we take a drive down a dirt road. As all of a sudden, we look to our left and we looked to our right and there they are. The group that we just talked to the night before, walking a long ways to get to the trailhead.

Charlie Thompson: 11:18 Yeah. They walked down this really busy, dirty bus road and probably hiked for close to an hour just to get to the trail. Whereas we were taken to the trail.

David Kosloski: 11:31 That’s right. We were taking the trailhead and it’s dirty. And that’s even what David said. David’s said, “You know, I was talking to Frank and there’s really no reason for people to hike down this we’ll pay the extra 20 Soles to get you guys down to the trailhead. Because it’s dirty, you’re going to get filthy and there’s really no need for it. It’s wasted time. It’s wasted energy.

Charlie Thompson: 11:48 It’s not even a pretty hike. You’re walking down a gravel road, right?

David Kosloski: 11:52 Absolutely. On top of that, then we go into the next part of the day where we get to meet up with these beautiful folks one more time and that is on day…

Charlie Thompson: 12:02 That was on day three and it was in Santa Teresa at the hot springs.

David Kosloski: 12:07 So we run into the guys again on day three and hear some not so amazing stories about their hike and their experience. Now. Nobody spoke English and didn’t really help them through anything. Cause there’s always little places to stop in, they’ve got monkeys, they’ve got birds that speak Spanish, it’s awesome and nobody spent the time to explain to them who they are. Meanwhile, David is talking to the locals, is teaching us how to make coffee, how you roast the beans, talking about the monkeys, talking about the parrots. Having a great time. What David is doing… and this is full disclosure, every place that we stopped, David made us purchase a water or a popsicle or a drink or a Brownie or whatever the case is.

David Kosloski: 12:51 And you know what? He’s doing it because he wants to help his fellow people. These people thrive on tourism. Okay? They survive on that and everything else is just a bonus. So making coffee, doing farming, things like that. So you know what? You’re probably going to buy a lot of drinks but bring some extra cash. Literally, gifty soles will go a long way on this hike. Right? Or in general when you’re going on these tours, 50 soles. David’s gonna negotiate good prices for you and he’s gonna make sure that people get taken care of.

Charlie Thompson: 13:17 And 50 soles is not very much money. It’s 30 bucks?

David Kosloski: 13:22 Yeah. It’s not much.

Charlie Thompson: 13:22 Not even 30 bucks. It’s 20 bucks.

David Kosloski: 13:24 Yeah. Then we get to the hot springs. We stay in a nice hotel. That was really nice. Actually. Really warm water. Got WiFi in the lobby. We wake up in the morning and we go ziplining. Okay. Pretty awesome. David takes us to the ziplining. Other guides, nonexistent. Don’t know where they are, but David’s with us. Dave is holding our hand. He doesn’t do the Zip lining, but we go have fun, we zip line. Have a good day. We talk a little bit more with Kevin and Kara, we talked a little bit more with our other friends that we met from Canada and then all of a sudden we get to Machu Picchu.

David Kosloski: 13:58 Our last day after we hiked a long ways to get to Aguas Calientes. Which man, I’m not gonna lie Aguas Calientes at the hotel that we stayed at. I could stay there for probably three or four days. The sleep was amazing next to the river. It sounded so beautiful. And everyone stays in this hotel. I can’t stress how beautiful it was.

Charlie Thompson: 14:22 And the beds were incredible. Yeah, I think that’s probably what it comes down to. Right? The beds were great. It’s a city, right? It is. But just the ocean or the river and the idea of the wind blowing through the room and just as gorgeous. I don’t know what it is. It was just something about it. Was beautiful for me.

Charlie Thompson: 14:42 It was. That was by far probably the best hotel experience we had the entire time. All the places we stayed were fabulous. Even the Airbnbs we got in Cusco but this place in Aguas Calientes, David hooked us up and this is the same place you guys will go.

David Kosloski: 14:57 Yeah, exactly. So we get to Machu Picchu that next morning and here’s where the real fun begins. We find Kevin and Kara. We got to get one of them on this show to the story a little bit differently than us. We’re like, “Hey, where’s your guys’ guide?” And they’re like, man, we woke up at like 4:00 AM. We hiked all the way up this mountain because they didn’t get a bus ticket to go up. So you can take the hike if you want to. That’s an option. I ain’t going to do it for. I will say that right now. I’m going to take the bus up, spend the 20 soles or whatever. I mean, we already hiked the 40 miles, but at this point, and this is all included, everything that we’re talking about price wise except for the drinks at the little towns is all included.

David Kosloski: 15:32 So this bus trip is included. We pay for it. You know what, if you don’t want to take it, you want to do the hike, go ahead and do the hike. Be a macho man. That’s fine. Do what you gotta do. I’m here to see Machu Picchu that day and I’m here to be able to enjoy it. They do the hike, they get up there. Guess what? The tour guide, not there. They paid for a tour guide to tell them about the history of Machu Picchu and things that went on in Machu Picchu, the toilet, all the different spiritual things that go on there and their guides gone. So what do they end up doing?

Charlie Thompson: 15:59 Well, first of all, they actually found someone else and they paid someone else extra money to kind of walk them through a little bit of Machu Picchu, but then they found us and they were like, “Hey, do you mind if we tag along and listen to David tell us more about Manchu Picchu,” because they didn’t get the information that they wanted. They didn’t get any history, or education or why the Incas built Machu Picchu or what these certain things were. They didn’t get any of that. So they actually paid someone extra to walk them through some of it and then they came to us and said, “Hey, do you mind if we tag along and ask David questions?” It was unbelievable. But I’m really glad that they were able to experience everything that David had to offer. This is where we’re bragging on our guides again because they’re top notch. I mean they don’t leave your side, they don’t leave you hanging. They explain everything thoroughly. David’s been doing this for over 20 years, this is his home. He loves it. He loves the Andes. This is a huge passion. You go to our Facebook, our Instagram, you see a picture of David cheese in it. I mean cheese in it on the trail because he loves this so much and that’s what you’re going to experience.

David Kosloski: 17:07 Yeah. I think the big thing here too is our guides going to hold your hand the entire way. He’s going to be with you. He’s not going to leave your side. You’re gonna be with him. He’s going to know where his group is at all times. If you want to sleep in and you don’t want to show up, that’s on you. But at the end of the day, our guide is flexible. He wants you to have a great experience in Peru because who knows if you’re ever gonna come back. Most people aren’t going to be like us. They’re not going to come back and that’s okay. We’re not offended by that. That the point is that you’re there once. Make the most of it, make that adventure. Get to the top of Rainbow Mountain. Do what you need to do, I’m looking at you with that Rainbow Mountain because you almost didn’t make it. I’m saying though. You’re there once. Make it happen. Do you. Do what’s best for you, So when you leave and you go back home. You say, “an, I made the most of that trip.

Charlie Thompson: 17:47 You don’t want to pay for something and be like,” God, I wish it could have been different.” You don’t want to regret it. As David said, you’re probably going to go to Peru once. This is more than likely a once in a lifetime trip, so make the most of it. Make the most of it and get what you know your worth. Enjoy it. If you want to learn the history of Machu Picchu and things like that, make sure that you are booking with somebody like Cachi that has the guys that have the experience. If you want to pay less money and go with somebody that’s just going to drop you off, that’s fine. You can do that.

David Kosloski: 18:22 You’re going to get what you pay for, that’s for damn sure.

Charlie Thompson: 18:24 But we don’t recommend it. We recommend having somebody walk you through the history so you come away from Peru and you’re just unbelievably amazed. You don’t walk away from Peru with a lot of questions.

David Kosloski: 18:35 Here’s The testament to that though. And the point that we’re, that we’re talking about is that, that Kevin and Kara, that same group ended up booking a trip with us their last day. So it goes full circle, right? They, they booked the trip with us afterward. And then we’ve actually got some people that we talked to that had amazing testimonials and we’re going to get them on this show that as our goal in the next month is to get people on this show to tell you how awesome our trips are compared to what they heard from other people. And get people on the show who did both Kara and Kevin. I would love to get them on to explain what it was their first time with a group and then what it was like. And we’re not going to bash any company names. You want to do the research, go out there and do it. I got two things for you right now. One is you want to pay less money, go ahead and do it. You’re not going to get the best service. And number two, maybe or maybe not, they are in fact paying their guides, paying the people that worked for their company, locals good enough, money to survive. And that’s the key thing. They’re probably paying just enough to survive. And we’re doing better than that because we care about these people. We want them to grow, we want them to develop and keep moving forward.

Charlie Thompson: 19:38 Yes, trust us, we know the numbers and they’re paying them less. Absolutely. Not great. We’re not gonna mention any names, but it’s not good. It’s just not good. It’s not fair.

David Kosloski: 19:49 Exactly. It’s like if you get a tour here in the United States is $20 and you’re paying $23. Three bucks going to go to me to take this group out. It’s horrible. Anyway, ridiculous. I digress. We need to not get into a rant of that. We’re sitting at about 20 minutes guys. Thanks so much for hanging out with this at the Peru Travel Podcast. Hit us up cachilife.com. C.A.C.H.I. Hit us up on Instagram, @cachilife. Hit us up on Facebook. We don’t have a lot of Facebook followers for whatever reason, so hit us up on Facebook, shoot us a DM if you want. If you got questions, you have concerns. You just got random talking points. Just say, “Hey Dave, guess what? I hate your voice.” Message it to me. I want to hear it. I want to see you live and in color. Okay? Alright guys, thanks so much for hanging out with us again today. We appreciate you have a good drive into work or wherever it is you’re going. I hope to see you or hear from you in Peru very soon. Take care.

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