If you ever find yourself in Cusco and need to get to Lima let this be a warning to you.
We surpassed our previous record of longest bus journey over the last two and a half days with a mammoth 34.5 hour journey. Add in the fact that we arrived 3.5 hours early to the bus station and you could argue that the whole experience took 38 hours.
It was supposed to take 20 hours but along the way we encountered a flood that washed away the road. We had to wait for 8 hours beside a ravine and bed down for the night until the bulldozer man arrived in the morning. It took him less than an hour to clear the road. When it was clear everybody wanted to go first so there was quite the bumping and banging of buses and cars to cross the newly constructed road. Then when we got to some nonedescript town the driver hit a taxi and kept going oblivious to the damage he had caused. The bus had left a nasty streak down the front left side of the taxi and had broken off his side and front indicator. The taxi chased us down and one of the bus drivers went off to the cop shop with him.
We continued on our merry way. Then when we stopped two hours later about 5 people got off and 15 got on. They all had tickets telling them that they had a seat allocation but we were already in them. It turns out that there are two buses that run within half an hour of the other so they obviously got on the wrong bus. I tried to explain this to the guy who thought I had taken his seat but he either didnt understand me or didnt want to understand me. I think the conductor knew what was up but he let the bus continue on regardless.
We got to another town and there was a Police checkpoint. I thought it was fairly routine until I remembered that the day before 4 policemen were murdered by terrorists and we were heading into the terrorist hotbed of Ayacucho. In the 70s and 80s this was the headquarters of the Senderoso Lumo or the Shining Light and old habits die hard. We couldnt have picked a worse place to go to at this time. Turns out the nonedescript town was called Andahuylas and there was an insurrection that targeted the current president of Peru at the time. Terrorists had stormed the police station and were holding them hostage and killing at pre determined deadlines if they didn´t get what they asked for. Basically they wanted the Peruvian president to retire.
Suddenly the bus was swarming with police. They sent on the youngest looking and probably the wettest behind the ears to interrrogate everybody first, and after that the older nastier guys started getting involved. Every young lad between 12 and 30 was asked for his ID and if he didnt have it he was pulled off the bus and interrogated in the street. At one stage a young boy of about 8 years old opened the window to get some fresh air (you can imagine the smell thrown up by fear and sweat and SBVs eeking out). One of the cops outside saw this and roared at him to shut it. I dont know if they were giving the lads thumps or what outside but it was a lucky escape for Pauds who was about to do the same thing.
They spent and hour going over documents and getting lads off the bus until they spied and old decrepit lad sitting in the very last seat of the bus right behind us. It seemed like they had hit paydirt because the oldest and most senior and the nastiest policemen (he even had the bloodshot eyes of a right hoor) charged down the bus to get him. He didnt have any ID and was escorted off. Every other lad that was taken off was allowed to return but we never saw the old man again. Then the police got on again and started searching all of the bags and under all of the seats at the back of the bus. Whatever they were looking for they didnt find it and they looked pretty sullen about that.
The strange thing was that they never as much as looked in our direction at any stage. So if you want to become a terrorist in Peru look European. We were slightly worried that if they saw Irish passports it might cause alarms to go off but they never once asked us for them. As a final insult the bus that we were half an hour ahead of was allowed to pass without being stopped. That was the bus that all of the lads who were searched were supposed to be on. No wonder they didnt find anything!
We were grand afterwards if a little pissed off about the whole thing. In total it added about 14 hours to our journey. We went to Ayacucho afterwards and you wouldnt know anything had gone on. Fecking crazy Peruvians.
So if you ever find yourself in Peru do not take the mountain route to Lima unless you like being searched by cops. Whatever you are in to.
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