On The Buses

At this stage of the trip, on day 180, we should be tucked up in some nice hotel enjoying the last few days of our global circumnavigation.

But not us! That’d be boring! So today, we did the longest single days travelling since setting off to Beijing six months ago!

We had to get to Juliaca airport quite early for our flight back to Lima, so got up at 5am, grabbed a quick breakfast at the hostel, and waited for our transport, taking a last look at the scene of my flower pot disaster last night!

The transport bus arrived at 6:30 am, which was about the time we needed it to be there in order to make our flight, so we said goodbye to Alfredo who’d come to see us off and set off on the journey to Juliaca.

Now, Juliaca airport is about an hours drive away from Puno, and we needed to be at the airport around 7:35am. Not a problem then. Or at least wouldn’t have been a problem had the driver not pulled up two blocks from the hostel, dawdled around for ten minutes, and then picked everyone up in Puno who flagged his vehicle down! It was 7 am before we even left Puno!

A very anxious drive later, which involved lots and lots of watch checking, we arrived at the airport at 7:50am, managed to still get our bags checked in, waited ages to pay our airport taxes as an Argentinean Tour Guide didn’t have a clue what he was doing with his tour group’s taxes, and ended up being the penultimate passengers allowed through the security checkout! Stressed as hell, we boarded the plane

and then spent the next fifteen minutes incredulous as two tour groups, one Argentinean and the other Chinese, played a game of musical chairs with their designated seats! It was beyond belief to watch the sheer stupidity of some of them, and even the flight attendant’s professional smile started to slip after the third time someone decided to sit in an emergency exit seat and bring their oversized luggage with them!

Eventually, after the tour groups realised that they couldn’t find any more seats on the plane in a better location, we set off back to Lima airport, getting perhaps our last proper look at the Andes mountains for this trip.

We arrived in Lima airport at 10 am, meaning that we had a four hour wait before catching the bus to Nazca. We tried at first to kill some time in the airport, but got bored after an hour so got a taxi to the bus terminal for a change in scenery. The weather in Lima was miserable. It was humid as hell, and hammering down with rain. This, in a city which is one of the driest on the planet! Even the taxi driver commented that the weather was “catastrophic”!

Waiting around for hours in the Cruz Del Sur bus terminal wasn’t much fun either! We passed some time grabbing something to eat in the restaurant,

and then managed to pass some more time by buying and playing with a Winnie the Pooh Rubiks Cube! Which is even harder than a normal Rubiks Cube (not that we could ever do the normal Rubiks Cube in the first place!)

Eventually, it was 2pm and time to board the bus. We’d paid an extra US$5 each for a VIP seat. To be honest I can’t understand why not more did so. Our seats were on the lower level of the bus, and there were a total of 9 luxury seats on this level, similar to the reclining seats in Business Class on a plane. Upstairs, for US$5 less than we paid, there were around 30 seats! For a seven hour plus journey, I couldn’t see the point in saving such a minute amount when the conditions we travelled in were vastly superior to the cheaper seats. But, each to their own!

The bus set off, and fairly shortly we were out of Lima, following the Pan American Highway south, and travelling through mile after mile of desert.

Even though we knew Lima was a desert city, it’s hard to believe this until you do actually see that there is nothing but barren sand outside it.

We were served an amazing chicken and rice meal, and sat back to watch the “entertainment”; the film “Failure to Launch” which was dubbed into Spanish with English subtitles! It kept our attention for around the first two minutes, and then we gave up on it, settled back and relaxed for the rest of the trip.

Stopping in Parraca around 5:30pm and then Ica around 6:45pm, we were due into Nazca about 8:45pm. 8:45pm came and went, and eventually we arrived 45 minutes late at 9:30pm in Nazca bus terminal, a journey time of 7 and a half hours.

As always when arriving in a place at night, we experienced a degree of disorientation. This was made worse by the fact that the bus terminal was mad, with people jostling to get past and no clear indication of any taxis (which we needed because we didn’t have a clue where our hotel was!)

Rather than just get into any car, warnings about Peru taxis ringing in our ears, we asked the bus terminal security guard where the taxis were. He had a word with a woman nearby, indicated that her tiny unmarked car was a taxi, so in we went! And four blocks later we were at our hotel, the Casa Andina!

After all the long travelling, arriving in Nazca was a bit of a whirlwind. Our hotel seemed really nice,

but we were so wired with the journey (coupled with not being at altitude any more!) that we couldn’t get to sleep for ages! Which didn’t really matter because tomorrow is one of those rare things which happen once every one or two months; a proper rest day!