Cruz del Sur

So last night we took a fancy bus company from Lima to Ayacucho called Cruz del Sur.  They were so hardcore about security, the bus had a GPS and they filmed all of the passengers in case somebody died or something and they switched drivers every 4 hours.

We got on the bus, after checking our baggage, and discovered that our seats even had footrests.  And then, we played bingo over the intercom!  (If you won, you were supposed to press the call button.)   I did not win.

It was a really long bus ride, and it went through the mountains up to an altitude of 4,000 meters, on windy roads, so almost everyone got sick at some point (I didn’t) and the bus smelled way too much of vomit.  Then at 5am, we stopped for a long period of time, although I was too sleepy to figure out how long.  Probably at least an hour.  The bus was even off for a long time, and then we were stop and go.  I thought that the bus had broken down and we were having trouble getting into gear, which was scary because it was like the best company and if they couldn’t keep it together then no one could.  But it turned out that there was some sort of blockage on the highway and only one lane was getting through.  I think it was a truck broken down, but it could have been a landslide or even a protest or maybe construction.

So we got into Ayacucho about 2 hours late, after about 11 hours on the bus, which is way a lot.  Time to sleep til noon!