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Another very early start: 4.30am, which after a week of very early starts we could do without. 5.45am finds us at the airport waiting to check in for our 8.00am flight, Claire says next time we have a flight she'll determine what time we get up to get to the airport. Cusco airport is pretty much deserted at this time and we check in quickly (our combined bags weigh in at 31Kg - there's no way Dederick's bag could have weighed over 20Kgs on the Inca trail), then sit up stairs for our breakfast: 2 snicker bars, a (bad) cup of coffee and a cup of tea - through security and in to the departure lounge where we watch 5 or so policemen with handcuffs pass through the metal detector. Not sure what the point of this was as the detector beeped every time they went through and they weren't searched afterwards - still procedures have to be followed. The departure lounge is typical South American chaos with no indication as to which gate our flight will leave from. The overhead monitors have no departure information on them until 10 minutes before our flight when the departing flights start to appear line by line - even the ones that have already left - I guess the person responsible for entering the info had a bit of a lie in this morning.
Finally we are called to our gate, board the plane, take off and head for Lima, we get a very welcome breakfast snack on the flight and a good view of the Andes and their foothills / canyons. Its obvious why it could take anywhere from 1 day to 2 and half days to travel by bus from Cusco to Nasca. Lima airport is small, I guess similar in size to Stanstead, we collect our baggage and our accosted by a nice lady who organises an "official" taxi from the airport to the bus station. Lima is grey, cool and damp, a "fog" hangs over the city for most of the winter. The city is poor - lots of people selling stuff at traffic lights, "squeegies" trying to earn a few pennies, crazy, crazy driving which makes the A1 into London look like an orderly procession of very polite drivers. We're not keen on Lima and can't wait to head out and down the coast. At the bus station we buy our tickets - the next bus to Nasca leaves in 20 minutes and should take 6 hours, we will be there by 4.30pm. Over the next 2 hours waiting for our bus to turn up at the bus station, we check in our luggage and ask every half hour when the bus will leave. Our simple question is met with a look which says "Why are you asking such asilly question?" and a response of "minutes, minutes". Finally we're off and out through the hussle and bussle of Lima and onto the Pan American highway heading south, both sleeping for a few hours.
At Ica the driver stops for a break, we have a coke and some fruit and discuss what we would like to do in Mexico. We're looking forward to leaving South America and spending a couple of weeks exploring Mexico and Cuba. Back on the bus the in-journey entertainment is "Independence Day", looks like our bus journeys in Peru will have a Will Smith flavour, finally at 8pm we arrive in Nasca. After a little confusion (there are 2 Hotel Alegria's in Nasca) we get to our hotel, have dinner and collapse in to bed.
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