The Last Night Bus ?
*** WARNING ***
If you care at all for the well-being of Señor Hans, do NOT read on !
*** END OF WARNING ***
This is a feel-good story for all of you readers who feel extremely envious of the adventures of Señor Hans - and rightly so - and have been waiting for something rather sucky to happen to him ... however, I must disappoint you in that regard :-p as my general good luck prevents rather sucky things happening to me, but the last few weeks I have spent more time in transportation than is required for a good nature and a happy smile.
After the jungle, I wanted to get back into the Peruvian mountains to spend my last week-and-a-half there in a relaxed fashion, like I did at the beginning of the trip. The town of Ayacucho in the central highlands was to be my destination.
Leg 1: Bus from Rurrenabaque (Bolivia) to La Paz. I have seen some buses and some roads here, but this was my worst trip of South America.
I had taken the gamble of selecting one of the front seats in the bus. Usually you have more leg room, but not always ... and Bolivians are already a head shorter than I am, if the tall ones that is ...20 hours across gravelly dirt roads from 100m to 4700m and then back again to 3600m above sea level. I arrived in La Paz at 6 in the morning, having slept about 4 hours in total during the night, generally feeling I just ran up and down South America´s highest mountain, Aconcagua.
Leg 2: It was good that I knew La Paz. Took a taxi with the other gringos from the bus to the city center, then a collectivo to the ´cemeterio´ from where the buses to Copacabana leave, which is at the Titicaca lake and the Peruvian border. I was in luck. At 7 the bus left. I saw the lake one more time on the way there, an awesome sight again, and was across the border, and on a bus to Puno in no time, arriving there around one in the afternoon.
Leg 3: The thing with overland travel in South America, is that 99.9999% is on buses. They used to have trains here, but they could somehow not compete with the numerous bus companies, so one by one they went out of service.
What is left is mainly tourist trains, and one of those happens to go from Puno to Cusco, and on the day after I arrived in Puno too. So I spent a day full of altitude-sickness-headache in 3800m above-sea-level Puno and was on the train to Cusco the next morning.
It was good fun. Señor Hans really likes trains and I was getting so fed up with those buses that this was a more than welcoming change. I had some nice conversations with Ted from Minnesota (all US travellers you meet apologise for Bush, I love that), the mountain views were great, and the little Peruvian kids - without a doubt the cutest kids in the world - were waving to the gringo train every town it passed through. I arrived in Cusco at 6pm.
Leg 2: It was good that I knew La Paz. Took a taxi with the other gringos from the bus to the city center, then a collectivo to the ´cemeterio´ from where the buses to Copacabana leave, which is at the Titicaca lake and the Peruvian border. I was in luck. At 7 the bus left. I saw the lake one more time on the way there, an awesome sight again, and was across the border, and on a bus to Puno in no time, arriving there around one in the afternoon.
Leg 3: The thing with overland travel in South America, is that 99.9999% is on buses. They used to have trains here, but they could somehow not compete with the numerous bus companies, so one by one they went out of service.
What is left is mainly tourist trains, and one of those happens to go from Puno to Cusco, and on the day after I arrived in Puno too. So I spent a day full of altitude-sickness-headache in 3800m above-sea-level Puno and was on the train to Cusco the next morning.It was good fun. Señor Hans really likes trains and I was getting so fed up with those buses that this was a more than welcoming change. I had some nice conversations with Ted from Minnesota (all US travellers you meet apologise for Bush, I love that), the mountain views were great, and the little Peruvian kids - without a doubt the cutest kids in the world - were waving to the gringo train every town it passed through. I arrived in Cusco at 6pm.
Leg 4: According to my information, a night bus straight through the highlands to Ayacucho would leave the bus terminal at 6.30, so I was in hurry. Surprisingly, a local taxi driver took full advantage of that and brought me to the terminal as if it was a taxi trip from the airport.
Two buses actually left at 7pm, but both were ´completo´... drats ! I didn´t want to spend the night in Cusco, so I thought I would just go as close as I could and took the night bus to Lima at eight, wanting to get off in Pisco at the coast south of Lima, were a road branches off into the mountains again to Ayacucho.
Leg 5: 17 hours and one night with hardly any sleep later, the bus brought me to the branch-off to Ayacucho, 10 kms from Pisco, where I found out that the next bus was at 9 in the evening. It was 1pm ... sigh ... and another night bus!
Ok, give me a ticket then. With 8 hours to spare, I was soon on a collectivo to Pisco, where before I fled into this internet cafe here, I took a little look again at the barber shop where I had my first South American haircut (see the November archives for that bloody gory story).
Leg 6: Night bus to Ayacucho ? You never know around here, but I have been told I am pretty sure to arrive in Ayacucho tomorrow morning around 5 ... yippie ...
It will be my third night in a bus in the last four nights, my fifteenth night during the whole trip and it will very surely be my last here !
And I want a bed !!
(Feel better now?)
Two buses actually left at 7pm, but both were ´completo´... drats ! I didn´t want to spend the night in Cusco, so I thought I would just go as close as I could and took the night bus to Lima at eight, wanting to get off in Pisco at the coast south of Lima, were a road branches off into the mountains again to Ayacucho.
Leg 5: 17 hours and one night with hardly any sleep later, the bus brought me to the branch-off to Ayacucho, 10 kms from Pisco, where I found out that the next bus was at 9 in the evening. It was 1pm ... sigh ... and another night bus!
Ok, give me a ticket then. With 8 hours to spare, I was soon on a collectivo to Pisco, where before I fled into this internet cafe here, I took a little look again at the barber shop where I had my first South American haircut (see the November archives for that bloody gory story).
Leg 6: Night bus to Ayacucho ? You never know around here, but I have been told I am pretty sure to arrive in Ayacucho tomorrow morning around 5 ... yippie ...
It will be my third night in a bus in the last four nights, my fifteenth night during the whole trip and it will very surely be my last here !
And I want a bed !!
(Feel better now?)
posted by Hans at 15:25
3 Comments:
I pity the fool....
(read this with your best BA accent)
Typically women behaviour, the man in pain being preyed upon ferociously ...
any sign of weakness is ours for the taking......
Publicar un comentario
<< Home