Bus to Lima, Peru - 5-6 October

After landing back on Ecuadorian soil … long gone were the blue, blue waters and white sands! We arrived in the city of Guayaquil and although the airport building was a rather new and impressive building, my hopes were dashed as we seemed to find ourselves being taxied into the brown and poverty stricken streets to our hostel for the night.

By all means not the most glamorous city, but it sure was BIG! We managed fairly easy to find the bus company and book ourselves onto the longest bus trip we had ever faced…We were anticipating a 26 hour bus journey from Guayaquil in Ecuador all the way across the border and into Peru, down the Peruvian coast to the capital city of Lima.

As we watched our bags being loaded into a dirty and slightly crumby looking bus, I looked at Derek and shook my head! We were in for a helluva ride! We boarded our bus, to find the interior looking even more dismal than the outside of the bus and I knew right there and then that I was officially in Bus Hell. Broken seats, window panes not properly secured, not to mention the unmentionable something sprayed all over my window right next to my arm!

After about 20 mins into our journey, our bus stopped for the first of many times – we were going to get a lunch snack it seemed. Our less than pleased hostess handed out polystyrene packs picked up from the gas station we’d just pulled into. South American tradition of carbo fest continued... a mound of rice, some meat looking stew with chips in it and a slice of avo …mmm... I was going to have lost at least 3kg’s by the time this bus journey was over!

 

Ok, so I could rant and rant at how bad this bus trip was, but it got a whole lot worse when we realised that according to our guidebook distances, we were running more and more behind schedule. We worked out our bus must have had a mechanical problem as every 2 or so hours the bus just stopped, switched off completely, we just sat and waited.

Turns out our bus ride which should have been 26 hours, turned into 32 hours! The last couple hours being the worse... a bit of mutiny on the bus, with fellow passengers getting so annoyed they started smoking on board, lighting incense sticks and the last stop the bus made at this road side café – well Derek and I couldn’t even walk into because it smelled so foul!

Anyways, taking the attention off the bus and looking out of the window… what a sight! We were literally travelling along the coast of Peru through desert terrain – interspersed by crop farming surrounding the little towns we passed through (one in particular was centred around  a fish food processing plant and by goodness – was the stinkiest town I’ve ever had the privilege of passing through!) Anyways, the coastline was pretty spectacular – at some parts travelling in the desert, along these steep cliffs, where below you blue water sprayed- something like Chapman’s Peak but in a desert!

Ok, so 32 hours later, a couple books read, a little hungrier we finally arrived in Lima! We stayed in a lovely suburb called Miraflores – great restaurants and lovely and clean! We were sad to have missed out on time in Lima – definitely seemed a good place to explore further.

View from the Promenade

We woke up early the next morning and went for a walk along the promenade which was about a block away from where we were staying. It felt like we were in Cape Town, people running and cycling along the promenade – all so western – wow! We walked along until we came to the Lovers Park – which was quite cute.

Lovers Park

Quick rush to the airport and we were on our way to Cusco …high altitude and the starting point for our trekking adventure!