Lima and Pisco, Peru

The trip leaders from ISL are ANGELS in disguise. They were the highlight of this trip. There were aspects I enjoyed, and some I did not. I enjoyed our two trip leaders, our two fun days at the end where we went sand boarding/sand duning around the Ica Desert in Pisco, Peru and our trip to the National Reserve that included a beach in Pisco. I also felt very safe traveling with ISL and the other students I was with. They made sure to give us safety tips like when we could safely take our phones out for pictures, how to identify fake money, and how to watch each others backs when we went out in public. Our trip leaders had such a heart for service and I will miss them so much. If I were to do another ISL trip, it would HAVE to be with these two. We also had a third ISL representative who was from Peru. She was very knowledgeable about where we should and should not go, and obviously knew the culture well. Her attitude some days was unbearable however. She was pregnant so I kept that in mind, but at times I feel like she didn't care what experience we were getting. For example, on days where ISL paid for our lunches (which was about 3 or 4) we had to split 5 entrees for 17 people for lunch and dinner for about 3 or 4 days in a row. We went very hungry for those days. Fortunately, we brought some of our own snacks but I can't imagine the $4,000 we paid to go on this trip could not cover the cost of more meals. Another lack in this trip was communication, which was KEY for 17 people to have a successful trip. The two trip leaders communicated everything they knew to us. Our nursing "leaders" that went with us had no idea what was going on and if they did the rest of the group was so confused day after day with what we were doing because our itinerary got changed from what we were originally given. I would not like to go on another trip with this Peruvian representative from ISL. I just could not find where our $4,000 went for this trip. Our plane tickets had to be about $1,000-1,500 because we flew out Wed to Wed and we even took a red eye home, our first hotel in Lima was disgusting and could NOT have cost more than $30 USD per night for 4 nights. Our second hotel in Pisco was better, I would say 4 stars on the outside, 2 stars on the inside and in the middle of a desert so that couldn't have cost much either. We did pay for bus service the entire trip which was nice but it was often late because of A) Peru time (it's such a real thing..) and B) they weren't always told when to be there to pick us up. One last aspect I would suggest to change would be to have a more relaxed schedule. I understand they wanted us to see as much as we could in two weeks but we got up between 6 and 7 AM every single day and got home at between 9 PM and 11 PM every single day. Girls were very sick and still had to go to the days events and it was exhausting. If our schedule wasn't as packed as it was and we could spend more or less time at places we liked or didn't like it would have been more enjoyable.