October 10, 2005
Day 12
The overnight bus out of Huaraz was rough, as usual. In the first hour, we went all the way down the side of a mountain to sea level. Every minute or so, I would start to fall asleep but the bus would make a sharp turn and wake me up. Plus, there was a big fat guy sitting next to me and taking up half my seat. If I ever join that division of the CIA that tries to get suspects to talk, this will be the technique that I will recommend.
After the long bus ride, we arrived in Lima at 4:20 AM. The ticket window was still closed, so we had to wait a few hours at the station. We figured out that a company down the street had buses that left every 15 minutes in the general direction of Pisco, so we hopped on the first one of the day and got the hell out of Lima.
It was almost noon when we arrived in Pisco. Morad and I had to take a taxi from the Panamerican Highway, where we were dropped off, to the center of town. We were going to go to a hostel that was highly recommended by my guide book, but the cab driver told us about a new place that's supposedly way better, but won't be found in any guide book because it is so new (It's pretty common here for taxi drivers to attempt to change a backpacker's mind. That way, they get a piece of the action, too.) The driver was willing to wait at the new place to see if we liked it, so we decided to have a look.
It turns out that this place is a palace. It has a pool, a ping pong table, a pool table, a party area on the roof, cable TV in every room, and free Internet access, all for $6 per night! After the long night and day of riding in buses, we both decided to stay there and get some rest.
I spent most of my day uploading pictures and updating my blog, but I did get a chance to look around town a little bit as well. Pisco is very different from Huaraz. Instead of being in the mountains, it is in the middle of a desert. The houses look different, the sky is more hazy, and the don't appear to be many indigenous people here, whereas they were in the majority in Huaraz. Even the taxis are different here. Most of them are 3-wheeled motorcycles with covers. I saw a few of them in Huaraz, but they are everywhere in Pisco.
Tomorrow, I will be going on a tour of the "Poor Man's Galapagos" with a bunch of visitors in town. There should be some great photo opportunities there.
The complete photo album for this entry is here.
