The Bus to Pisco

I woke this morning to strange woman in the bed next to me. (My GAP roommate had a 24 hour, five-flight adventure to get from the Galapagos to Lima and arrived in the middle of the night. Her bed was next to my bed—we weren’t really sharing one—I just thought that sentence was a good attention grabber.) Caroline is a pharmacist from the UK (as was my last GAP roommate in China—what are the odds?) who seems quite nice, so that’s a relief. The morning consisted of sleeping in and getting snacks for our four hour journey from Lima to Pisco. Our room was the storage place for everyone's bags until we left for the bus, and I have to admit I felt pretty good about the size of my roller carryon compared with everyone else's backpacks.

This picture doesn't really do it justice. The small bags next to it are day packs.  

“Seňores, I’m going to be honest…our bus to Pisco today is pretty dodgy.” So started the spiel of our tour guide Rudy as we headed to the bus station. With this description, I was bracing myself for three people to a seat, fowl in the overhead bins, and the driver’s steady honking as he played chicken with oncoming traffic in order to pass semis carrying natural gas. In actuality the bus was quite nice—a little bit of a letdown, frankly, when it comes to stories and pictures of bus travel in South America. J

Our "dodgy" bus. We were even served empanadas and soda.

I learned some other interesting things about Peru today:

•  Peru produces 33% of the world’s cocaine
• Cocaine and marijuana use are legal here, as long as their use doesn't bother anyone else
• 5 Peruvian soles (less than $3) can buy a gram of cocaine or enough marijuana to fill a 500ml bottle
• Many taxi drivers are accountants, lawyers, bankers, etc., but can actually make more money driving taxis than they can working in their professions 
• Minimum wage here is equal to US$108 per month
•  1/3 of the country is unemployed
•  There are no social services for the unemployed
•  It never rains in Lima
•  It’s often cheaper to buy a house (US$20,000-$30,000) than it is to buy a car (US$30,000), as the cars are imported and the government charges a 51% tax on them. (Why the tax when Peru doesn't produce any cars of its own is a mystery…)

After an uneventful drive to Pisco, we had dinner as a group again. I have to admit, I really enjoy food, especially trying new types. (As a side note, we were talking with our tour guide Rudy tonight about stereotypes from different countries. When it came to Americans, he said after giving talks about the local food and recommendations for specialties of a specific area, Americans always ask if they can get hamburgers or pizza somewhere.) I tried a seafood soup for dinner tonight. No shortage of seafood.