The Real World

It’s been hectic here for the past few hours.

After yet another sleepless eight hour bus ride from Arequipa to Nazca, we arrived at 5:30 in the morning. I managed to catch about an hour and a half at the hostel before I had to wake up for my tour of the famous Nazca lines.

For you uncultured Philistines, that would be the pictures of monkeys, spiders, hands, and various geometric shapes
stretched hundreds of miles across the desert, made by very determined and reasonably smart people a long time ago that are only visible from the air.

Anyhow, eight o’clock came and went, and the 30 minute flight that I paid $50 for was a no-go due to cloudy conditions. I went back to sleep for another 2 hours or so, and checked again at noon.

This time, they drove me out to the airport to wait a bit. After determining that conditions were still too cloudy, they showed a bunch of us tourists a video about the Incas (as if I haven’t already seen enough of that crap).

Finally, I got most of my money back, minus $15 which paid for a taxi ride out to a tall tower that affords views of two shapes, as well as a trip to a museum dedicated to the lines.

Upon return to Nazca, the original plan was to travel by bus to Ica tomorrow. However, we found out that there is to be yet another transportation strike for yet another ungodly reason, and it was to last an indefinite amount of time.

Seeing as how I have to be in Lima by Thursday evening, the strike was definitely a BAD thing.

We tried to get the bus company to refund our money for the tickets we had already bought, but they were bastards and wouldn’t give it to us.

So, following the advice of a friendly local, I went out and bribed a member of the Peruvian National Police (the country’s way underpaid finest) to come and “help” us “encourage” the company to see our point of view a bit better.

Needless to say, it worked. We got our money back, and the policeman ended up S/10 ($3) richer. And so that’s the way things work in this country. So it goes.

We’re now in Ica, and I need to get some sleep.