It’s a long time since I traveled by bus. I don’t mean a quick twenty minute hop into town, I mean really travelled. I mean hour after hour of prison style arse ache on a bus designed for primary school children. I mean bus journeys so long, you have birthdays on them. But travelling by bus is how we roll in South America.
It is something of a novel experience. First of all, because you are on them so long, all kinds of peculiar things start to happen. For example, at the end of my first week, I took the bus from Arequipa to Cabanaconde, home of the Colca Canyon, a positively jaunty six hour ride through mountain, (more) desert and a sprinkling of small Peruvian towns. The journeys, despite their length, are perilously cheap. This 200km ride can be made for just S15, or the lint from your belly button, whichever is handier.
To top up the lint money, the bus companies have cut a deal with all manner of travelling salesmen. These guys (and girls) jump on the bus in the middle of nowhere, give you a 10-15min sales pitch, then walk through the bus trying to shift as much snake oil as they possibly can. One of the more popular items on sale is the coca leaf. Yes, that coca leaf. I’m not sure what kind of quantities one would need to be considered the next Paublo Escobar, but I’m certain you could acquire sufficient supplies if you were to stay on the buses long enough (a strategy that is hard to avoid given the size of the place).
The leaves are used to make tea, idly chew and build vast drug empires, although I only tried the first two. In theory, the leaves help with altitude sickness, although I’m fairly sure most westerners are attracted to them as obtaining and consuming them makes you feel ever so slightly badass.
The other thing that happens on the buses is you get to hang out with the locals. There is a luxury tourist option, Cruz del Sur, that boasts leather seats, obscure movies and more complimentary meals than your average transatlantic flight, but the price of these is astronomical by comparison (lint not accepted), so generally you go for the local buses. Because a typical journey will last around twelve hours, these often travel overnight. Seasoned travellers will bring food and sustenance to see them through the journey, but don’t worry if you have forgotten yours, there’s usually enough grub smeared across the seats to see you through the first eight hours.
The other thing those in the know won’t travel without is a pillow and a decent blanket. As they travel at night, it makes sense to have a kip, though you should be aware that the locals get so used to these journeys, they feel right at home on them, one lovely old dear rolling over and giving me a hug in the course of our time together. Not wishing to offend, I stroked her hair and chose not to mention the dribble she left on my shirt.
A few things on Colca Canyon. Larger but less celebrated than it’s more illustrious American cousin, the canyon is a good place to cut your trekking teeth if you’ve never tried it before. A testing 3,000m decent is followed by a lung busting climb through a few villages before diving back into the Canyon and a town collection of mud huts called San Juan. For anyone looking to escape the trappings of western civilisation, San Juan is the place for you. Not only do they not have wifi, they have dispensed with such luxuries as lighting, electric and opulent displays of wealth like door handles. This latter treat meaning escaping your room demands long nails and lots of patients or ten minutes rattling your window hoping for a benevolent passer by.
The whole place is hosted by a wonderful old dear named Gloria, who loiters on the mountainside waiting for tired and unsuspecting hikers who are only too grateful to follow into her clay empire. Beyond the mild compromises mentioned above, the place is a treat. Gloria serves up some of the best food I’ve eaten in Peru and all will a chuckle and a smile (usually accompanied by a side comment in Spanish that is almost certainly playful and at your expense). I actually loved Gloria a little bit, and not just because she made me my favourite breakfast (chocolate pancakes), but because she has carved out a wonderful world of her own, in the nape of natures majesty.
After breakfast, I started the hike up the canyon with a couple of Belgian girls I had met on the plane in Nasca. I’d bumped into them again in Arequipa and they invited me to walk the canyon with them. Despite my panoply of charms, I found these girls a little hard going at times. The first was confident but aloof, the second coy but warm, neither made for fun, free flowing conversation. This was a good thing as hauling your ass up 3,000m of zig zagging mountain path with nothing but jagged rocks to break your fall and, most likely, your neck, takes the air out of your balloon a little.
While I didn’t suffer altitude sickness specifically, I did find the thin air made what would be a challenging ascent in any circumstances all the more tricky. This is also how I justify the twenty minute nap I took mid-climb. All told, this was the toughest thing I’ve done mentally and physically in a little while, but the experience and the views made it more than worthwhile. I’ll post some pictures above to give you a flavour of what I mean.
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