Farewell kiss from Peru!

Bus from Cusco to Arica, 5 November 2007

So, the next stage of our trip. We decided to make the 50 hours journey south to Santiago in Chile. In the bus station we booked what we thought would be the comfiest possible seats on a Cruz del Sur bus – fully cama, i.e. seats recline fully to form a flat bed to sleep on. Bliss. This bus would take us 20 hours to Arica in northern Chile where we would then hop on another 30 hour bus journey to Santiago. Easy Peasy….or so we thought. However, when we got to the bus station in Cusco for the first leg of our mammoth journey things didn´t seem quite right. The Sales girl wasn´t giving us our tickets and she kept telling us to wait. To cut a long story short we had booked with what could only be described as con artists. They had bought tickets for us, that day, on the cheapest bus heading south & charged us 320 soles BUT the tickets only cost 130 Soles. They were asking us to wait so that we would get on the bus at the last minute and be gone. Claire was having none of it. Fortunately the bus driver realised that she was trying to scam us & he also started giving out stink to her. Claire threw a wobbly & headed off to call the tourist police.

Eventually she, miss scam artist, must have got worried that we were going to escalate matters because she gave us back our money, minus the nominal fee for taking this "indigenous class" bus. Funny thing is that while she was returning our money the bus had pulled off and was gone. She ended up putting us in a taxi to chase the bus. We insisted she come with us. She was not happy…but we were. It took us 30 mins to catch the bus at which point Claire and I simply got on without saying a word to the scamster and we were on our way.

I don´t mean to generalize but all the people on the bus stank. There was also a pungent smell of piss…and I mean pungent!! Thankfully after about 6 hours the human body had adjusted to the smell and there was only another 12 hours to go. Aargh!! Claire had not been feeling very well (head cold) getting on the bus so you can imagine how she felt when we finally arrived in Arica. Instead of hopping straight on another bus to Santiago we decided to take an overnight stay & recharge the batteries.

The following morning, feeling much better, we got ourselves a "real" comfy bus - see piccie opposite. It reminded us of our first bus journey from Rio to Iguassu. Big wide seats, food served, blankets and pillows. Exactly what we thought we were going to get from Cusco. But we´re not bitter.