We travelled overnight from Arequipa in the south to Lima on an enjoyable, 16 hour, Cruz Del Sur VIP bus. We decided to stay a day in Lima and catch the bus to Guayaquil, in Ecuador, the next day. We spent the night at a basic hostel called Lex Luther’s House in Miraflores, purely on the basis it had hot water and was called Lex Luther’s. The owner Louis was very sweet, if slightly frenetic and the house was homely, if a bit scruffy.
We got a local guy from the hostel, Victor, to call the bus companies for us to check the timetable for tomorrow. We wanted a bus that would go straight through the Peruvian/Ecuadoriian border, to avoid changing buses. That particular border crossing is quite dodgy, with people always getting scammed. Victor said there were no buses tomorrow, so we’d have to spend another day in Lima, however the bus company did have seats for us downstairs the following day and those seats were our preferred option. Great, thanks Victor, book those bad boys for us would you. Yep, all sorted.
That evening we went for a wander around Miraflores. We went to a square called Central Park that was full of friendly stray cats and the streets surrounding it were full of local peoples’ art for sale.
We ate at a little restaurant which sold Arabic food. I had some koftes and hummus and rice, Pads braved the local specialty – Ceviche. The next day Pads woke and he was not well, at all. I also had a migraine and could barely open my eyes. I can only deduce that we were poisoned, as one must be at least once whilst travelling. You literally could not even say the word fish to Pads…
Ceviche:
The next day we got our bus at 2pm as planned. The company was Ormeno and it was NO Cruz Del Sur. We went to go through the door downstairs to our lovely seats. No said green eyeliner bus lady to us and pointed upstairs. WHAT! We specifically asked, three times, for downstairs seats. But no, we had indeed been seated upstairs for maximum sway around the corners. Brilliant. In fact, there were no public seats downstairs so I have no idea what Victor was actually asking on our behalf.
We sat for a while on our velour seats, waiting to leave the terminal and it was getting pretty hot. Everyone starts faffing with the aircon. Oh no wait, there is no aircon. That’s good – in 31 degree heat. We tell green eyeliner lady and she ignores us. We don’t take it personally, as she ignores everyone else too. We set off. It gets hotter and hotter. I have a sweat tash just sitting stationary.
About an hour and a half out of Lima, we stop on a live lane of their motorway equivalent. Green eyeliner lady tells us to get off the bus with a flick of her hand. That’s the extent of the communicative effort we get from her for the duration of the trip. Turns out the aircon’s broken. Wow, what a shock! You’d have thought someone would have noticed in Lima, where there are people – maybe even aircon specialists – available to fix it; but no, we should definitely wait for an hour and a half in to the desert until we alert someone.
We sit in the motorway layby while everyone beeps their horns at us for taking up a lane and wait for an hour in the sweltering heat until someone fixes the aircon. We get back on the bus after being ripped off by little man with a mobile ice cream fridge; capitalising on our misfortune. This must happen a lot…
Back on the bus Pads starts to read a book. Very slowly, almost imperceptible to the naked eye, his chair reclines backwards. Before he knows it he is almost at 180 degrees, staring at the ceiling. He sits up straight again, adjusts his chair. Slowly it drifts back in to a reclined flat position. He is not very happy. His only option is to be horizontal for the entire journey, which is 24 hours…
Our dinner, mmmmm. We got fed 2 meals of this delicious standard for the entire bus journey:
24 hours later…
We are still on the bus. I have just woken up. It is about 3pm the following day.
Where are we? I ask Pads.
Oh, Tumbes, he says.
I think with alarm – WHAT!!! Tumbes is in northern Peru. This means we haven’t even got to the Peru border yet. It is meant to be another 8-10 hours from the border to Guayaquil in Ecuador. What the hell have we been doing for the last 24 hours to not have even got to the boarder? To be fair, I have been asleep for most of it, trying to drown out the horrifically loud Spanish movies they played constantly.
We are still in Peru? We haven’t even crossed the border yet?! I ask
Pads shrugs, There was some traffic.
There’d have to be a lot of fucking traffic to add 8 hours on the journey! No explanation is given by green eyeliner lady, even when I beckon her over with a silent, curt 2 finger coax. I ask what time we are getting to Guayaquil by pointing to my watch and saying Guayaquil.
She replies – 6 – with her fingers.
I have no idea whether this means in 6 hours, 6pm or 6am. She doesn’t speak English and I don’t speak Spanish, so I resign myself to my fate and cuddle up under my new alpaca blanket, which is exceedingly warm.
31 hours later… We are finally off the bus! We have been given 2 meals of rice with one token peice of meat. Pads is starving. The journey was a touch longer than anticipated; no explanation was offered and as we can’t speak Spanish I guess it’s tough shit. We’re now staying overnight at Iguanazu hostel in Guayaquil, where we will have a quick sleep and shower before we depart for the Galapagos Islands tomorrow. Bring on the turtles!
Click here to read next post
danilovescats 