The overnight bus and adventures into the middle of nowhere

COUNTRY: Peru
PROGRAM: GapBreak
PROJECT: Teaching & Building
WRITTEN BY: Lauren Collee

We've reached the end of another week in Cusco and are taking a breather in between two trips out of the city. On Tuesday we got back from the coast - a four night trip, of which two were spent on buses.

The way there was comfortable for most of us, seeing as we had managed to haggle our way onto a 70 sol bus with almost fully reclinable seats and an enjoyable viewing of "Taken" in Spanish.

I think if any of us have the misfortune to be kidnapped and sold into the sex slave industry we now expect our parents to pull a Liam Neeson and come looking for us armed with a shotgun. I would have preferred a little more straight road, though, and I think Sam Fairbz will agree. His estomago chose an inopportune time to react to the Peruvian food.. and it really didn't help that there was a hairpin turn every hundred metres. We probably also could have done without the hour of bad south-American 80s video clips at the end.

We arrived in Nazcar at sunrise, and were immediately snapped up by a sneaky little woman offering us a special bus tour deal of the Nazcar lines and a place to relax for a bit. She neglected to admit that this "rest" period would last all morning and most of the afternoon.

Some set off for the airport to fly over the lines instead, and after completing the paperwork and waiting for an hour or so, were informed that they needed their passport. James came prepared, and set off alone with a planeload of middle-aged south-american ladies (that is to say 3 of them).

The rest of us eventually piled into a big combi van with a guide who made us feel a bit uneasy when he gleefully exclaimed before heading off - "alright then, lets go into the middle of nowhere!". When we stopped for petrol on the way, "just in case", we couldn’t help but think "..of what?".

The actual lines we saw from the "look-out towers" (11m high rickety metal structures with enormous gaps in between the steps), getting a good look at a ´tree´ and a ´pair of hands´.. but we just had to settle with postcard-browsing for the other 100+ ancient sand-art images. I think we agree that it was worth it, though, even if only to see the house-turned-museum of old Maria Reiche, who had devoted her life to the study of the Nazcar lines. The old photos of her camped out in her mini-van in the middle of nowhere with an odd array of mathematical instruments, a 70 year old woman with wispy grey-hair, somehow were almost as unbelievable as the lines themselves.

That night, we headed to Huacachina, where we wandered into the nearest empty hostel and filled it up completely. Arriving there at night, we were completely oblivious of the beauty of the place until we spontaneously chose to climb the dune behind our hostel at about a quarter to midnight.

Walking up a steep hill of sand for half an hour was harder than any gym class we had ever done, but it was worth it when we unexpectedly reached the top. From there we could see the enormous walls of sand all around the little town (which would take about 15 minutes to walk the length of), the palm-fringed lagoon in the centre, and the lights of Ica and Pisco over the dunes. In the other direction there was nothing except for sand.

The next day, we headed out into the thick of it in dune buggys driven by amused Peruvian men who enjoyed scaring the pipi out of us. Sarah got stuck in one filled with Americans who apparently screamed out things like "YOOHOO" and "HELL YEAH" every time the buggy went over the slightest crease in the sand. Sandboarding was loads of fun, but left us with sandy eyebrows and severe pain in the behind for the next few days. It was an achievement if anyone reached the bottom of a slope without ending up in a sandy heap, legs in the air.

Our next stop was Pisco, famous for the egg-white "pisco sour" drink which no doubt is responsible for having sent a few of us to the clinic in the past. Pisco had been ravaged by an earthquake 5 years earlier, and everywhere were lovely old half-demolished buildings with pastel coloured walls, and half-reconstructed new ones. Its a lot more tropical than Cusco, and far quieter, but the sleepiness of it and complete absence of tourists wasn't bad for a change.

We stayed in a beautifully decrepit colonial house on the beach called "casablanca" for approximately 5 dollars a night. On the way, we made a supermarket detour to stock up on 2 minute noodles, and for dinner filled every pot and pan in the house up with boiling water to cook them all. The people we had booked the island tour with for the next day then unexpectedly showed up claiming it was their birthday, and we played drinking games with our landlady, Maria. She was a good sport.

The next day we spent on a quick tour of the "poor mans Galapagos islands" in paracus, before heading on a bus to Ica. There we booked whatever seats we could find home, while a few stayed another night in Ica. Seeing as our bus left at midnight, we had time for a very cheap and satisfying asian meal, and a couple of pisco sours to make sleeping on the bus a little easier. There were various stories to hear when we all met back in San Jeronimo - Sophie and jack had been kicked off their bus halfway through, Sarah had a bottle of water poured on her seat.. but we all got home in one piece. I stumbled straight into the kitchen for a bowl of carmens warm noodle soup, and realised how much this place feels like home now.

Since being back at school, we have finally finished the mudbrick stage of the greenhouse, which comes as a huge relief to all of us.. those things are far heavier than they look. We also did our two house visits, local Ccorao families to whom we will devote a portion of our fundraised money.

We have been brainstorming how to use the funds, a painfully easy task when the essentials they don't have far outnumber the things they do. I think we all see the kids in our classes with new eyes after having been exposed to the conditions in which most of them live - we feel more proud than ever now when they hunt us down in the playground to recite particular words they remember, or ask us impatiently when class will start. On Friday, one of the grateful mothers of the houses we visited came into the school with a basket of warm potatoes and chilli sauce to thank us in advance - we can't wait to start.



Our plans to hike up to the festival on Ausengate mountain fell through this week after we realised that we had missed the main celebration and that temperatures were down to -15 up there, but on Wednesday next week we are taking a little time off school to head to the amazon basin for 6 days. I think we might actually miss the kids quite a bit - its odd thinking that our classes will be over in just over a month.