Sunday, September 30, 2007
Ayacucho to Andahyualas then to Cuzco
We got up at 5 to catch our 6;30 bus. The first thing I noticed about the bus/coach was that it had off road tyres on and a row of 5 spot light on the front. Now I thought that Ayacucho was a pretty remote place. I was wrong. Leaving the town we left tarmac behind and started on the dirt road. the dirt road then got steeper and narrower. There were places where the road was getting erroded and these seemed to be at areas of the road with all the steep drops and I do mean steep. I need to point out that I seemed to always be sitting on the side with the drops.
We got to the high point of the road and had a stop everyone got off and went for a piss. Even the women were just squatting down and pissing. I had a really bad head ache at this time and got a sick bag ready as I had nausea as well. All symptoms of the altitude. The disappeared as quickly as my fear returned on the journey down. The driver seemed to be driving at road speeds off road! And again there were big drops everywhere. After 10 hours of contant bumps form the road and shear drops we arrived at Andahyualas.
Half way there our bus to Cuzco left at 6:30pm and it was already dark. This bus also had off road tyres, so looked like we were going over the same type of roads in the dark. Well only 11hours to go. This road is bumpier and I think (it was dark) but looked like it had the same type of drops. After arriving at Abancay the road turned to tarmac and it stayed like that to Cuzco.
We arrived at the bus station how you would feel after 22 hours of traveling. Even I was keep on getting a taxi. Although I was keen on getting a taxi I wasn´t keen on getting swindled. I asked an official looking guy at the station and he said 3soles for a taxi to the centre. As expected the taxi drivers said 6. I was negociating and some bitch trying to sell a hostel butted in to say the normal price is 15 and 6 was a good deal (Taxi drivers are well known for doing special prices at 6 in the morning, sure). While I was praticing my Spanish with her (read as giving her a good slaging off), Lisa got the taxi driver down to 4soles. So we went for that.
Now one thing I new back in London, never mind Lima, was that there´s a flight which takes only one hour to Cuzco form Lima. So what would I do in future? At the moment I would have to say fly. I really feel knackered and stressed, it was dangerous. And after the Inca trail I just want to spend a week to two weeks chilling. But isn´t it nice to have this choice of being able to choose how we travel. Many, if not all on that bus don´t have that choice. So maybe you are getting more of an experience buy traveling this way. I certainly met some really nice peruvians on the trip, and saw some fantastic scenary. Give it a few weeks and I think my answer would be different.
We got to the high point of the road and had a stop everyone got off and went for a piss. Even the women were just squatting down and pissing. I had a really bad head ache at this time and got a sick bag ready as I had nausea as well. All symptoms of the altitude. The disappeared as quickly as my fear returned on the journey down. The driver seemed to be driving at road speeds off road! And again there were big drops everywhere. After 10 hours of contant bumps form the road and shear drops we arrived at Andahyualas.
Half way there our bus to Cuzco left at 6:30pm and it was already dark. This bus also had off road tyres, so looked like we were going over the same type of roads in the dark. Well only 11hours to go. This road is bumpier and I think (it was dark) but looked like it had the same type of drops. After arriving at Abancay the road turned to tarmac and it stayed like that to Cuzco.
We arrived at the bus station how you would feel after 22 hours of traveling. Even I was keep on getting a taxi. Although I was keen on getting a taxi I wasn´t keen on getting swindled. I asked an official looking guy at the station and he said 3soles for a taxi to the centre. As expected the taxi drivers said 6. I was negociating and some bitch trying to sell a hostel butted in to say the normal price is 15 and 6 was a good deal (Taxi drivers are well known for doing special prices at 6 in the morning, sure). While I was praticing my Spanish with her (read as giving her a good slaging off), Lisa got the taxi driver down to 4soles. So we went for that.
Now one thing I new back in London, never mind Lima, was that there´s a flight which takes only one hour to Cuzco form Lima. So what would I do in future? At the moment I would have to say fly. I really feel knackered and stressed, it was dangerous. And after the Inca trail I just want to spend a week to two weeks chilling. But isn´t it nice to have this choice of being able to choose how we travel. Many, if not all on that bus don´t have that choice. So maybe you are getting more of an experience buy traveling this way. I certainly met some really nice peruvians on the trip, and saw some fantastic scenary. Give it a few weeks and I think my answer would be different.
