Christmas, Nazca Lines and a horrible bus trip.

Christmas Day in Lima was very nice and relaxing. We slept in for a while and then had a late lunch at the hostel with Mat and Harriet. Lev was staying at a different hostel but he came over after lunch and celebrated with us as well. We seemed to be the only ones staying there as we had the kitchen and common areas to ourselves so we took over the front courtyard and played music and cards and drank until past midnight when the guy on reception who was very grumpy switched off the inside lights. I think he wanted to go to sleep himself and was unhappy we were keeping him up.

The next morning we had a bit of difficulty getting up and packed by the 1pm check out time. Mat, Lev and I took a taxi to the bus terminal and got tickets to Nazca leaving that afternoon. Back at the hostel we collected our bags from the rooms and after lunch nearby took a taxi back to the bus station.
The Bus was scheduled to leave at 4pm and we were all loaded on and ready to go by about 4.30pm but just sat there for a while in the stifling heat until we had to get off to cool down. The temperature was in the mid 20s outside but on the bus it was 38! Some tinkering was done with the bus engine for a while and we finally departed at 5.30pm. The aircon was supposedly on but only managed to get the temperature down to 29 degrees.
The bus was a large double-decker and we had a great view out the front which was really nice while the sun went down as we drove along the pacific coast, later on in the night it wasn’t such a good thing as the driver made up the 1.5 hours he was late by overtaking every bus and truck we caught up with at great speed!
We arrived in Nazca around midnight and walked a few blocks to a cheap Hostel “Friend’s House”. After a quick walk to a corner store to get some water we easily fell asleep.

Woke up with the plan of trying to book a scenic flight over the ‘world famous’ mysterious Nazca lines and then try and get a bus to Cuzco. We had the idea that flights had to be booked a couple of days in advance but the reception at our hostel said he could ring a van to pick us up in 20 minutes and take us straight to the airport. $55USD each and we could go any time of the day.
With that planned we walked through town and found a bus company with seats available at 6pm to Cuzco. Bus trips had been getting more expensive the further south in Peru we got but these were 90 Nuevo Soles each! (about 45AUD) The trips were getting longer though. Lima to Nazca was 8 hours, this next leg would be 12. We booked the seats and headed back to the hostel and checked out and waited for the van to pick us up. While we waited we watched a documentary about the “pathway to the gods” Nazca lines.

They date from between 200 BC to 700 AD and went unnoticed by the modern world until the 1940s when people flying over saw them. A crazy German woman lived by herself in the desert for 60 years studying them and ’removing centuries of debris’ to reveal complex patterns and images. (Or maybe making some of them herself?) She was reviled as a crazy witch by the townsfolk at the time but is now revered as almost a Saint. (Well when they charge $55USD for a 30min flight, surely there is a patron saint of capitalism they can name her after.)

The trip to the airport was only a few minutes but then we had to wait for almost 2 hours to get a spot on a plane. They have 4 and 6 seater Cesnas and as we were a group of 5 we had to wait for one of the few 6 seaters.
Once we were on board the Pilot gave us a ’map’ of the flight route with the images marked which we would be seeing. We would fly past each one and he assured us we would see them from both side of the aircraft. Shortly after take-off we found out this meant a very sharp banking turn around each of the geoglyphs which quickly made those of us with weak stomachs queasy and at least one person on the plane needed to make use of the supplied barf bags (name withheld to protect the embarrassed.)
The flight was a lot of fun and the scenery incredible. Difficult to take photos through the glass as the plane was pretty bumpy as well but we took enough that we got a few good shots.
Back at the airport we had to wait again for the bus to take us back to town so in the end we spent over 3 hours at the airport to take the 30 minute flight!

Back in town we went and got some lunch, collected our bags at the hostel and arrived at the bus station at 5pm as we had been asked to in case the bus was early. (hah!)
We checked in our bags and were advised the bus would be arriving at 6.30 so headed over the road and had a drink at a restaurant.
Back at the bus station it wasn’t until 7.20pm that the bus finally arrived and then two minutes after leaving the station it pulled into a very unpleasant bus stop for a dinner break for the people who had been on since Lima! Half an hour later we pulled out once again only to stop another 100m up the road at the market where the driver touted for more passengers for another 20 minutes!! And then just after leaving town he stopped again for several minutes for no apparent reason!!!
After that I just stuck my head in a book and tried to not pay too much attention figuring we would get to Cuzco eventually. However at 3.30am when he stopped for an hour and a half and there was hammering going on at the rear of the bus I was a bit concerned whether we would make it there at all.
I woke up again at 5.30am and we were travelling through a very pretty ravine beside a river with massive snow-capped mountains above.
About 8.30am the bus broke down/stopped at a mechanic for another hour and a half while they tried to weld something to something else. After an hour they started the bus and drove two metres before the weld broke and they had to have another go. Half the passengers were on the road by this time trying to flag down taxis. We tried as well but it was still going to be 4-5 hours to Cuzco and they understandably weren’t keen to drive that far.
Finally the bus started again and creaked up the hill and over another enormous mountain range. The rest of the trip was no less horrible than previous but at least we didn’t break down again.
We eventually arrived in Cuzco at 2pm after almost 18 hours on the road with the only breaks being break-downs. No food breaks apart from the one 2 minutes after boarding. No toilet breaks. There was a toilet on the bus but it was so disgusting that I stopped drinking water after having to use it a second time. The light was broken so I took a torch and boy do I wish I hadn’t!
If anyone reading comes to Peru and considers using the Palamino Bus Company, I’d strongly suggest you reconsider.