jaymar01

I'll be there in late August, and will be looking forward to your report.

I can't see how (at least initially) they're going to find enough people to meaningfully enforce the one-half day visit restrictions, much less find guides from the population base of metropolitan Aguas Calientes to meet daily requirements

.....but we'll see.

Efrem

They don't have to. Groups that come by train*, hike the Inca Trail, etc., generally bring their own licensed guides. I don't know what fraction of MP tourists come with guides from elsewhere, but I'm sure it's substantial.

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*Including mine last month.

jaymar01

Don't know.

I was there for one-day, nine years ago in 2008 (the day Lehman Bros. fell), and my impression was it was overwhelmingly independent, non-package tourists. Don't know if that was typical, and/or if the if the market has evolved over the years.

Villavic

I'd say it's mixed. I've been at least five times and was with a guide only twice. But that include ny travels in the 90s and early 2000s where you could even walk anywhere, cross the grass fields, climb stone walls, etc. Nowadays is far more controlled, you must folllow a path, etc.

jaymar01

FYI..........Here's the transcript of my post on Reddit:

Has anybody heard anything about how the implementation of all the new rules are going? I'm going to be there in late August, and am wonder what to realistically expect.

For example,all visitors entering Machu Picchu must be accompanied by a guide. It's hard for me to believe they're going to initially find enough qualified guides to make this work...but maybe??



I've been two Machu Picchu just recently (on 23/07) after the new entrance rule was implemented. When arriving in Aguas Calientes with the train, lots of guides where telling us that we have to book the tour with them at the train station as there wouldn't be any other guides available. This turned out to be wrong as there still were many guides available just at the entrance of Machu Picchu.

If you want to have an english guide however, it is recommended to book in advance in a group - about 25 SOL per person (I think they can take up to 16 people) or get your own private guide - about 200 SOL.

Though the most important thing is that if you don't want to take a guide, you don't have to! We have experienced this ourselves when we decided to just get in with our tickets without a guide and it was fine. Inside Machu Picchu, we saw a lot of people that weren't accompanied by a guide either and they had no issue getting in. I think that the tour operators in Cuzco and AC are trying to tell you that a guide is necessary but in the end it is not.



How effectively were they enforcing the one-half day visit restriction?

We had a morning ticket (6-12) and got there around 9am. The guide we talked to told us that they're not so strict with the am - pm tickets (so if we wanted to get in at 1pm it could have worked according to the guide, but I wouldn't rely on this too much)

What you need to know though is about the different type of ticket. You can get 1. Machu Picchu alone 2. Machu Picchu + Huayana (or whatever it's spelled) 3. Machu Picchu + Montana

Basically for 2 and 3, you visit MP and then you get a 2-3 hrs hike to these extra places. But if you have a morning ticket, they're gonna kick you out from Montana or Huayana at 12. And by the time you go down you'll be forced to get out of MP. I think the best option if you want to do MP + one of the hike is to: a) sleep the night before in Aguas Calientes so you can be really early in MP and then start the hike at (depending on the ticket you purchase) 7-8 and visit MP after or 9-10 and visit MP before b) get a morning + afternoon ticket so you're sure you can get the whole day to visit.

I can't confirm whether they kick you out of MP after 12 though since we exited the place before then.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PERU/commen..._july_01_2017/

Villavic

I'm posting my report in a new thread.

matravelguy

I ended up having to change the dates of my tickets, so I went in under the new rules in early September. As far as I can tell, there was no enforcement of the "have a guide" rule (I made two entrances, one with a guide and one without). There was also no enforcement of a maximum time at the site - nobody went around checking entrance times and kicking people out.

What was enforced was the one-way flows of traffic. There are a few routes you can take, but once you get far enough along your route, you find one-way signs and will get yelled at by guards if you try to go the wrong way.