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Published: February 13th 2009
The Whale
This first line we see from the planeAfter Cusco, next stop was Nazca, a place I was really excited about visiting. The bus trip there could be done overnight from Cusco, and the staff at our hostel produced a nice, shiny leaflet, showing a nice, shiny bus. I´ve travelled on many buses like this in South America, and they´re fine for long trips - reclining seats, toilet, air con etc. Normally, I go down the bus station and buy my ticket there once I´ve checked out all the companies, but we decided this time to let the guys at the hostel book it for us. They hostel also doubles as a tour agency and books stuff for people every day - what could go wrong?
We booked three days ahead, and got a bit nervous when the tickets didn´t materialise. Then when they did (on the day of departure), they had the wrong departure time and were for Lima, not Nazca. An hour before we were due to leave, the right tickets were finally delivered. Great, I thought - a comfortable night on the bus, then wake up in Nazca!
Once down at the bus station, we checked in our luggage and found the bus and
The Astronaut
What on earth were the ancient peoples thinking when they dreamt up this? it didn´t look anything like the nice, shiny bus in the leaflet. It looked like a local bus, and it turned out that it was. Now, I must point out that there is absolutely nothing wrong with local people and their buses, but if you are going to take a 12 hour bus journey, it really is worth spending a few extra dollars, soles, bolivianos, whatever on a comfortable, touristy bus so that you can sleep, eat, go to the toilet, not die of exposure, heat etc.
The bus stank - of unchanged nappies, and the cluster of small, screaming children on the knees of several women explained why. We managed to push a small window open and debated whether we prefered the noxious fumes belching in from outside or the smell of poo from within. The bus started up and we started our twelve hour journey (well, that actually turned out to be another lie on the part of the hostel as after twelve hours we were nowhere near Nazca, but more on that later)
I had been assured several times that a meal would be served and my being a vegetarian was not a problem. I
Me, being jolly
Not feeling half as airsick as I thought I would was a bit surprised but took their word for it anyway (fool that I am). Two hours later, the food was served and I opened the container to find a piece of chicken looking back at me. Then there followed the usual exchange I have with bus stewards when served my ´vegetarian´ meal. The guy shrugged and offered me coca cola as an alternative.
After a fairly sleepless night in a bus full of screaming children (and god, did they scream, although you can´t really blame them) it started to get light and we reached a small town. I thought we were due to reach Nazca shortly, but when I checked the altitude (altimeters are really hand things) I saw that we were about 3,000m too high and therefore several hours from Nazca still. We were pretty desperate for the toilet at this point and so requested that the toilet be opened (the toilet was locked and only opened on request, after you had promised in Spanish to pass only water, nothing solid). The steward refused to open the toilet and said the bus would stop for a break soon. Some time later, after the toilet stop didn´t materialise,
The Monkey
Check out the tail! we begged the steward and he promised us we would definitely stop in five minutes. And so we did. On a mountainside, in the middle of nowhere. The door opened and 40 locals rushed off the bus onto the road and squatted. When in Rome...
Several hours later, we had nearly reached sea level and the town of Nazca appeared. The trauma of the previous few hours caused us to head to a really nice hotel with a garden and a pool - bloody lovely it was too. The hotel had it´s own travel agency and, after booking flights over the lines for the following day, we went off on a short tour of Chauchilla. Chauchilla cemetery is in the desert, a short drive from Nazca, and contains the tombs of mummies dating from 1000AD. It´s been looted over the years so although a lot of the mummies are still in place, the surrounding desert is scattered with bones. The mummies are still clothed and have long hair, so it´s quite an shocking sight seeing them sat upright at the bottom of the tombs.
The following day we were up early for our flight, and headed off to
the airport with empty stomachs (it´s recommended you eat breakfast after the flight due to the often bumpy conditions on the plane). The plane was tiny (seats for five passengers) and I had barely got to grips with my seatbelt and we were up in the air looking down at the desert. We all had window seats and after passing a line on one side, the plane would bank and swing round so that the passengers on the other side could take a look and take photos. Half an hour later it was all over and we were landing back in Nazca; I love a good mystery and have always been captivated by the lines and what they represent, so seeing them for real was one of the highlights of my trip so far.
That evening, we heading to the Nazca Lines Hotel to attend the nightly lecture given in the Maria Reiche Planetarium. Maria Reiche was a German lady who devoted a large part of her life to studying the lines, and they built the planetarium at the hotel in her honour after she died (she lived at the hotel for many years). The planetarium was almost as
exciting as seeing the lines themselves, and after the lecture the planetarium guys wheeled out the telescopes so that we could look at the moon. Robert, the young planetarium assistant, was incredibly knowledgeable about the stars and we discovered that despite working at the planetarium for several years he had never seen the lines and was unlikely to ever be able to afford to. Alexandra (my Swiss travelling companion) and I had a quick discussion and decided that $25 each wasn´t going to break our budget and ten minutes later we were in the tour agency office with a nervous young man being signed up for the first flight the following day. We never saw him again, but hope he wasn´t sick and that seeing the lines for real was inspiring for him.
The following day we were back on the road again, this time to Lima, and this time on a nice, shiny bus. They even served me a vegetarian meal, which was very nice, but then spoilt things by giving me ham sandwiches four hours later (yes, that´s right, I´m vegetarian, but only before 3pm).
Our hostel room in Lima turned out to be the best
The Hands
Just plain weird, and count the fingers! yet - a twin room booking in a seemingly ordinary building turned out to be a suite of rooms in a beautiful art deco mansion full of lovely furniture. The room had three beds, an ensuite with original art deco fittings, a chandelier and a hammock slung across the bay window (the most exciting bit!). I joked about subletting any spare sleeping space and on the second night we did just that when a guy I had met in La Paz turned up in Lima with a friend. They had the twin beds and I had the hammock - slept the whole night through in a banana-shaped position (assisted by chugging pisco sours, red wine and beer the evening before...)
The plan was to spend a couple of days in Lima and then fly directly to Ecuador to make up some time as I was getting a little anxious about my ploddy pace across the continent. This turned out to be a very expensive option and so I asked the travel agent to find me a cheap flight anywhere north but as close as possible to the border with Ecuador. Turned out that flying to Tumbes was cheap and
it was the last town before the border with Ecuador so I booked it. I later discovered that they should actually be paying people to go to Tumbes, but more on that later...
Just before I flew out of Lima, things started to go very wrong. While trying to pack and also organise some stuff for posting home, I got a bit flustered and forgot my camera was balanced on my arm and dropped it onto the hard wooden floor in the hostel reception. I cursed my clumsiness, but wasn´t unduly alarmed as the camera has been dropped several times before (and travelled to Everest Base Camp strapped to a yak under 80kg of luggage). Sure enough, it worked when I switched it on, but a few minutes later I switched it on again and it was totally dead. The camera is a digita slr and is terribly important to me (despite me treating it quite badly). Without it, travelling seems pointless, but I hoped that once I reached Ecuador I would be able to either get it fixed or maybe buy a replacement.
Hours later, I was in Tumbes; it was early evening and I decided the
best option was to go directly to the CIFA terminal (CIFA is the bus company most commonly used for crossing the Peru - Ecuador border). I got in a taxi at the airport and soon realised what a sh*thole Tumbes is: the taxi driver refused to take me to the bus terminal as apparently it was shut. He then tried to drive me to Ecuador himself. I asked him to take me to the centre of Tumbes, specifically to a hotel I had found in my guidebook. He didn´t want to do this either and suggested we go to a nightclub. After much persuasion, he did eventually drive me to the hotel and I dashed in there with my luggage, checked in and made friends with the cockroach sitting on my bed.
The next few hours were eventful; when I returned to reception after checking in, I discovered the hotel manager spoke perfect English and he told me that the CIFA bus terminal was open all night, and that the buses departed all night too. He also told me he was surprised I had travelled here on my own and that I should be really, really careful while in
And here´s what we could have won
Hotel Nazca Lines - v expensive, but they have a lovely planetarium town. I took a motorcycle rickshaw down to the bus terminal and managed to buy a ticket and also answered many questions from the men there about my marital status etc.
The bus was due to leave at 3am and once back at the hotel I had to pop out and withdraw money from the ATM and also buy some food. In the few minutes I was wandering around I was followed (by men on foot and in cars), had obscenties shouted at me and was generally made to feel very unsafe. The bus turned up at 3am and had no aircon, toilet or vegetarian meals but I´ve never been so pleased to see a bus in my life.
As for Tumbes, don´t be fooled by the fact that it´s in the guidebook and has hotels and travel agencies. The place stinks and should be avoided at all costs. The cockroach in the hotel was quite pleasant though.
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