Maniacs in the desert

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It´s official! Peruvians are absolute maniac drivers. This covers various kinds of transport such as trucks, buses, motorickshaws, boats and today the plane pilot has confirmed my theory once again.

I nearly vomited in a small plane today as our pilot gave us spiralling, rapid views over the dry desert as we tried to see the Nasca lines. We saw them, very cool designs, supposedly created but not confirmed by ancient pre Inca Shaman people for only they know why. Unfortunately I spent half the time focussing on my lap, as did the 5 other passengers as the pilot screamed in our ears to look outside at the animal shapes. Maniac driving that was basically an hour of sky acrobatics was pretty hilarious now I think of it, but we all ended up greener for the experience.

Yesterday we had the pleasure of being driven at high speed by a man call Riccardo who called himself the Italian Peruvian because he likes to drive REALLY fast over the sand dunes in a red hot sand buggy. It was great though, that bit I liked! And he did pull out some sand boards for us as well so it was fantastic. Massive sand dunes, sliding down fast on our stomachs on the board...I can see how people really get into it.

As for the various other maniacs along the way I would just like to confirm that anyone considering travel in South America needs to either wear an eye mask when driven by bus drivers that overtake quickly on blind corners or otherwise develop an addiction to tranquilisers. They are also obsessed with horn blowing, never indicate, and unless you make eye contact with the driver while trying to cross the road Im sure you could easily suffer a little.

Wish me luck then, heading off an a 12 hour overnight bus up into the Andes tonight. Leaving the desert behind and heading back up to higher altitude for the rest of the trip

Kris
xxx

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