from Arequipa to Nazca to see a few lines

sometimes overnight buses are a blissful and cheap way to time-travel between cities: get on a bus in Mendoza, go to sleep, blank out the next 12 hours and wake up in Córdoba. awesome!

then there are those times when they are a sleepless 10 hours spent listening to the man behind you snoring, periodically bumping against the freezing window, feeling motion-sick as the bus winds through the mountains in the dark, eating crap food (that you´re vaguely worried will make you sick; how long ago was this beef cooked?!) and then being unceremoniously deposited on the streets of a strange new town in pre-dawn darkness and trying to sort through the mobs of hassling taxi drivers and folk selling rooms in their hostels. ¨amiga, amiga!¨

luckily, we booked a brilliant hostel for Nazca: they said (in spanish that i half-understood in my bleary state), ¨the beds you have booked are still occupied, but here, in the meanwhile you can have this room (worth twice the one you booked): feel free to sleep in the beds, use the soap (soap! we got hotel soap!) and generally mess it up until your actual room is ready at midday.¨

so we slept til midday. ahhhhhh. thanks guys.

so why are we in Nazca? well firstly because I wanted to see the Nazca lines and Lion agreed to come to see them with me, and secondly because we are then going to Cuzco for Macchu Picchu and the road from Arequipa to Cuzco is blocked by ¨manifestaciónes¨ (protests) and there are no bus companies running that route except really dodgy ones that might apparently dump you miles outside Cuzco and force you to hitchhike whilst protesters are throwing rocks at you (one story we heard from another traveller). alternately, they might take backstreets around the protests and construct makeshift bridges of wood for the buses to cross (our friend Martin´s experience). so while that does sound like a fun adventure (except for the rock part), we figured the Nazca route might be a bit easier.

it´s quite odd to be finally going to Macchu Picchu, one of the supposed ¨must see¨, ¨this will be the highlight of your trip¨ destinations. not to be ¨one of those people¨, but I have a feeling my highlights are going to be things like the time we went into a step-back-in-time diner in the middle of nowhere in Chile, truly resembling a scene in a Western, where all the customers were drunk old men enjoying their siesta a little too much. but I am sure that Macchu Picchu will be great, and I will have to admit to being a pretentious jerk and eat my words within days.

by the way: I did get a bit sick in Chivay, which was boring, but I got better real quick and because we had to stay an extra night we ended up seeing a pretty big street party: the folks of Chivay were having the 184th anniversary of their town. other than donkeys and llamas and dancers galore, we saw a giant sculpture of bamboo being constructed during the day, which we took to be some kind of street art until Lion realised the entire thing was covered in live fireworks. (there were also a few extra firewords on the ground, which small children were playing with.)

we heard it set off at midnight and rushed out onto the street (look, I´d like to say we partied with the locals all night and all that, but guys, there was still ice in the gutters at midday the next day: it was TOO COLD). anyway, picture spinning wheels of fire, spraying sparks all over the streets, and cheering crowds. it was WACKY. so something good came of the lettuce-incident!

we have 45 days left now!! ...oh my goodness, that´s not very long at all!!