Despite being out all night, I awoke at 08:00 hrs. and couldn’t get back to sleep. Eventually I got out of bed and set out to do the few tasks that were nagging at the back of my mind. I only had 20 Intis so my first priority was to change some money.
I changed $20 US dollars at 100 I/- per dollar at a Tour Office and went back to the hotel. I knew that they had a booking for my room that day but was relieved to find that I could still stay there until the official checkout time a noon.
At 10:00 hrs. I went down to the Landauro Restaurant on the corner of the Plaza de Armas for my rendezvous with the folk from Lima. I didn’t want to walk up to the cross, but I thought it was polite to turn up and tell them. I had a good cheese omelette and, as they had not shown up by 10:30 hrs. I returned to the hotel.
I lazed about for a bit and then packed my kit, glad to find that my towel had dried out from yesterday. I put my kit in the hotel store and paid my bill, which was 800 Intis for four nights. I then walked into town to find Piers and James and bumped into them almost immediately on the main street.
We browsed around the craft stalls after they had left their tiny packs at Edwards Inn. I met the girl from the trio who had invited me back for drinks last night. She said that the lads were still fast asleep. We then met a Peruvian girl called Claudia who sold jewellery, who James knew from a previous bus trip. She joined us for a very average meal in a Chifa Chinese restaurant.
The rest of the afternoon passed really slowly as we killed time with increasing boredom while waiting for the 22:00 hrs. coach to Lima. The tickets had cost us 282 Intis each. We walked up and down the main street and had cokes in several cafés, including one long stay in the Landauro Restaurante listening to “supermarket background music” (muzak).
On another walk to see if the Pacccha’k Pub was open (it wasn’t), we saw flashes of lightening and heard the first rumbles of thunder. Luckily, we reached the covered walkway where the pavement jewellery vendors sat (including Claudia) before the storm started.
At first there were a few sizable hailstones, about the size of garden peas, which rebounded from the road before the heavens really opened. A crowd of people on each side of the road stood under arches watching the torrential rain and the torrential rivers which formed in the gutters.
Overflow pipes from the flat roofs cascaded streams of water over the passing cars and children dared one another to dash across the road in the downpour. It was an absorbing spectacle for all, watching the savagery of the storm from snugly under shelter.
As the storm abated, we went for a coffee and a hamburger in a posh cafeteria under Mamma Mia’s Pizza place. At 18:00 hrs. the rain stopped, and we adopted James’s suggestion to pick up our bags and sit in a bar where we could read or write for a few hours.
There was a strange, beautiful light as the setting sun interacted with the scudding clouds and the rain-washed sky. We collected our bags and found several hopeful travellers camped in the hotel lobby. Every room in town seemed to be booked for Easter, and the prices doubled!
We settled in Parrilladas Frankos Grill and were disappointed to find that it was illegal in Peru to sell alcohol on the Holy Days of Semana Santa, probably to prevent the festivities getting out of hand in a riotous drunken debauch.
We read and chatted and kept a vigil over our baggage. I had trout and chips while the boys stuck to freshly squeezed orange juice for sustenance. For a bit of variety, we moved to another café which was opposite the Bus Office at 21:00 hrs.
Here we drank Coca Cola until the dusty Volvo coach pulled up at 22:00 hrs. Relieved that our wait was finally over, we boarded the bus and pissed around for a bit because, although there were more than enough seats to go round, many people had been allocated the same seat numbers.
We rumbled off into the night, almost on time, joining a convoy of buses from the myriad bus companies, all destined for Lima via Supe. Supe, or Pativilca in Barranca (Lima region) is a city located in Peru about 106 miles (or 171 kilometres) north-west of Lima.
I slumped sideways across the empty seat beside me and dozed on and off. We drove through great scenery illuminated by a full moon, weaving along many hair-pinned roads. We sucked boiled sweets to alleviate the effects of descent and felt our ears popping.
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