This one’s mainly about roads and buses, so if you are interested in neither, please find something more worthwhile to do. Our journey from Ayacucho to Cusco was indeed epic, and for reasons other than its duration. Normally we try to travel on the best buses available as some of these are pretty plush in Peru and not much more costly than the cheaper option. This time, however, we had no choice but to take an ‘economico’ from Ayacucho to Andahuaylas, the eight-hour first leg of our trip. The first hour of our journey was perhaps an indication of how the UK’s privatisation of public health could lead to unexpected consequences. A man with a hands-free mic got up at the front of the bus and started rattling on in tones that meant only one thing to me; party political broadcast. This theory was blown out of the water when he started to produce posters of the human anatomy, pointing at various parts and haranguing his audience about how they abuse them. He was obviously a funny man, too, as the captive audience paid good attention and laughed from time to time. When he started producing exotic fruit and veg from a box, explaining the benefits of eating them, I began to get the gist of this and whispered to Alan, ‘I wonder what he is selling’. Finally he cut to the chase and hit the passengers with the climax of his sales pitch – two bottles of potion, one for men and one for women, all for a knock-down price if the two were bought together. Several people fell for his charms or whatever it was and bought some. Thankfully he shut up soon after we left the city limits and began climbing once again into the mountains. Many of the roads in the Andes are still not much better than tracks with unfinished surfaces and vulnerable to landslides. There are, however, extensive engineering works being carried out on sections of these to bring them up to the standard normally expected for the carriage of heavy vehicles. It is incongruous to travel for mile after lonely mile on a gravel track, suddenly to come upon a whole army of fluorescent orange-clad people with heavy machinery laying conduits, building bridges and resurfacing. Anyway, having successfully negotiated the ‘good’ part of the road, at the usual confident speed, we came up behind a queue of buses and trucks. Across the valley we could see the reason why. A landslide, possibly brought about by some nearby works, had blocked the road. We sat there for an hour watching the fearless JCB driver going under the rock face to knock out any remaining loose bits before loading them on lorries. When we eventually got going, it seemed as though our driver was trying to make up time, cutting even more blind corners as the old bus creaked and groaned and emitted worrying clunks from the back axle. This was bound to end in tears and soon it did. Rounding a bend coming out of a village, we were suddenly hit on the side by a little red car. The bus barely moved, but the little car bounced across the road and into a wall, ending up stuck in a drainage ditch. Our driver and sidekick went to talk to the two occupants, thankfully unhurt, and we didn’t need Spanish to see how the conversation was going. Spoiling for a thrill, most of the bus piled out to spectate at close hand. I limited myself to a very British sly photo. Eventually the police turned up and towed the stricken car to the next village, where we stopped too. Presumably the driver was interviewed without coffee as we waited outside the office. This meant another hour’s delay and we were happy, not for the mishap, but for the fact that this and the earlier delay cut in half our waiting time at the station in Andahuaylas, which lived down to the usual standard of these facilities. The views en route were, as always, compensation for any discomfort and unusual smells endured on board. We climbed to over 4,800 metres (nearly 16,000 feet) where the air grows thin and snow lingers in the shady lee of rocks. It is incredible how people and animals survive in these inhospitable conditions, the livestock consisting mainly of pigs, horses and alpacas. At times we had to slow almost to a stop to negotiate the tight corners and the window seat was both a blessing and a curse when the bends meant our wheels were inches from near-vertical drops of hundreds of feet. I found the best tactic was just to look away so as not to let my imagination run riot! We caught our double-decker bus at 8pm and it rocked and rolled us through the night, bumping for such a long way on stony tracks that we became numb to it after a while (mostly in the posterior). At times we peered out the window and could see, through teeming rain, lights of villages far below us. The driver was immensely steady this time, though, and we had every faith in him getting us safely to our destination. As always I have waded through the photos, culled them, and will publish a select few to save your valuable time. It is not always possible to do justice to this majestic landscape through a grubby bus window, nor to convey how the clear air makes a sort of ‘super-3D’ effect with layer after layer of mountain range stretching as far as the eye can see. Hope you will enjoy!
Posted on: Sat, 24 Aug 2013 22:13:56 +0000
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