The bus itself was nice enough, and we had seats near the front with extra leg room. The ride got off to an inauspicious start when a guy with a microphone came on board and started speaking. At first I thought he was doing a safety briefing, but then he started talking about health in a long-winded fashion. He was right next to me and would. Not. Shut. Up. Then after what felt like a half hour, he tag-teamed it off to his buddy, who continued on the same vein. I think they were trying to sell ginseng tea or something. I made my position clear by putting in my earplugs.
The ride was long and hot. The roadway was mostly in the mountains, winding around the foothills rather than along the lower elevations. We stopped for lunch at a Peruvian truck stop partway through. It was probably the cheapest meal we paid for on the trip, probably about 2-3 dollars per meal. It was also some of the worst food, tasting just as cheap as the price we paid for it. The bathrooms were also pretty nasty, but we kept the food down and continued the voyage. We were beset with several other problems: There was construction that brought us to a crawl early in the trip. Later, the road was closed off entirely, and it took our driver 30 minutes of sweet-talking the construction guy to finally let us through. At another point the bus wouldn't start back up and they had to work on it before we could proceed.
The route was pretty but also kind of terrifying. I was worried the driver would lose control and we would tumble down the hillside like Wesley in the Princess Bride. We never did. Along the ride, we picked up and dropped off many a people, including a few vendors and Quechua-speaking grannies. I don't know how (or if) they paid.
We finally got to Andahuaylas after five, where Hermana Rufina was waiting for us. We caught a cab just as thunder and rain were rolling in, and ended up at the house of the Solano family.
Our dwellings are rustic, to say the least. The room is not completely closed off, and the toilet doesn't have a seat. Oh well, I've lived similarly on my mission. We ate a dinner of chaufa (fried rice) with Mario Solano, who talks a LOT. I didn't have much to contribute since a lot of the conversation was about people I don't know. Another family arrived, the ones for whom we acted as padrinos de promoción. They brought two large pieces of sweetened bread, which we definitely could not eat much of but had to try our best so that they knew we appreciated it.
Overall it was a rough day with our trip, but the stay in Andahuaylas will prove to be interesting.
(We did not take any pictures today, unfortunately)
Observations:
- It is, or was recently election season in Peru. Advertising is a bit different than the USA: Instead of signs, they like to paint a candidate's name as large as possible, so most big blank walls end up becoming giant campaign ads.
- Peruvian folk music all sounds the same. they were playing some for part of the bus ride. Two consecutive songs had literally the same guitar part (or mandolin, or whatever it was) and only slightly different lyrics.
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