tammlynn

I am not sure if this is the greatest spot to post my Trujillo trip report so if someone knows of a better spot please let me know. I know I had difficulty finding any info on private tours prior to my cruise on the Ryndam last week so I thought I'd share how our Trujillo experience worked out!

I decided to just see what there was at port once we docked to see if we could find a private tour. I had also read about some hot springs about 7 km away from town located on the property of a closed hotel.On the day of our Trujillo arrival, my husband and I managed to get on an early tender, talked to an American girl selling a children's book she had written, and she recommended a man named Charlie who actually owned the Hot Springs I had read about online and who runs a private tour guide business outside the port gate. We looked for his bright pink shirt as we walked outside the gate and found several him, as well as several other tour operators holding up signs. Charlie was awesome he asked us what we would like to do and we told him a historical tour of the town and to go to his hot springs. For an extremely reasonable price he arranged our cab and guide and we were off to the town of Trujillo where our assigned guide John gave us a very informative tour of the fort, cemetary, and town that lasted about an hour. We walked back to Charlie after the tour and he arranged a cab to his hot springs. The hot springs are a series of pools in a sort of jungle garden. The facilities are kind of rustic and the bathrooms could use a good cleaning, but what a phenomenal, magical experience. It was New Years Day 2015 and we had the whole place to ourselves except for the gate guard who later chopped down some fresh coconuts and opened them up for us. We had brought our own water and snacks which was a good thing since there is nothing out there except the coconuts! Our cab arrived right on time and we were back at the port with plenty of time to walk back into town and shop! My husband found free wifi in the park in the center of town and hung out while I shopped. I would highly recommend Charlie. I have an email and phone number if anyone would like it. You can also find him on FB, his name is Charlie Biondolillo.

We were there last week while cruising on the Ryndam, and went on his cultural tour which is still a really good one. He offers another one called Jaguar caves hike now but we like visiting the school children so we went back to the same tour we have done before. The highlights were bringing supplies and goodies to the children at the school along the Rio Dulce, stopping at the tortilla shack home and eating fresh tortillas, the hot springs were cool but a little crowded for such a small spot, eating the included lunch at Gus's restaurant, and shopping in Livingston. We have done this tour before, so we noticed a few things that could be improved upon. First we had to turn our guide boat around after leaving on time for our tour to pick up several late passengers. The boat got really crowded and even a little scary with so many people in it. Also, we had to wait awhile at his restaurant for the food to be served, and then were told to wait after that for some dance that was going to happen after lunch. Well I knew if we waited for this dance to happen we would have very little time to shop in Livingston, so I told our guide we were going to skip that and agreed on where to meet him in town.

Thank goodness we did, since others on the trip told me the dance thing was hokey and kind of a waste of time. I got some shopping done and found some great deals on trinkets. I would have liked to have had more time in Livingston though, since there seemed a lot going on. Anyway got back on our overloaded boat and made it back with about on hour to spare. I still recommend this tour since the cultural experience can't be beat with the other tours offered at the port. Gus is also very personable and runs a tight ship as far as his tours are concerned. Highly recommended.