Just in time

Went shopping around this morning, for a ticket on a night bus north to Trujillo. Got to the terminal of a company called Linea at 9:45am, and was given some hilarious news. Their 9pm bus to Trujillo was booked out for tonight: but they had 5 reserved seats that hadn't yet been paid for; and if nobody came and paid for them by 10am, they'd give them away first-come first-serve. So I took the advice of the guy at the desk, and waited for 15 minutes. By 10am, two reserved seats had been claimed, but the other three were up for grabs. I grabbed one of them, fast.

When I realised that I'd gone the wrong way this morning — to the Pisco high camp, instead of to the famous Laguna 69 — I thought that I wouldn't be able to make it to the laguna today. But as it turned out, I was able to have my cake and eat it too: I made it to Laguna 69; and boy, was it worth it. Quite a stunning place indeed.

The problem is, Lima doesn't have one. It has about 50. One for each company. Each one down the road from its peers, spread out over an entire suburb — nothing less than an absolute bus terminal balagan. No wonder that most people don't even bother trying to sort through the mess, and just buy their bus tickets out of Lima from a travel agency in town. Today, I decided to take the plunge, and to find myself a company and a bus ticket, to get me out of Lima tonight, and over to Huaraz. Managed it in the end, but it wasn't fun. Yet another reason why Lima's an evil city: they make it so daym hard to get out of it.

It seems that the recent troubles in Arequipa have cleared up a bit over the weekend, and that the roads in and out of the city are once-again open. For now, anyway. Not sure how long they'll stay open (it's still pretty volatile around here); but Chris and I seized the opportunity this evening, and grabbed a night bus to get us out of Arequipa, and over to the city of Nazca. Apparently, Nazca has been pretty much free of riots and roadblocks, so we should be fine there. Vamos a ver (lit: "we'll see").

Chris and I were hoping to catch either the 8pm or the 8:30pm bus this evening, from La Paz to Potosí. But when we got to the bus station, at 6:30pm this evening, the seats on both of these buses were completely sold out. However, they did have two seats left (the last two) for the bus to Sucre, which left — well — immediately, at 6:30pm! So we immediately bought the two final tickets, ran to the bus, whacked our luggage underneath, and jumped on. And that's how we ended up going to Sucre tonight, instead of to Potosí.