We arrived in Lima at 6am and again we had to face the crowd of taximen that jumps on you as soon as you get off the bus terminal, not to mention the taximen inside offering you a ride "seguro" (=safe) as approved by the bus company....but also much more expensive! Remarkably they all go away when you say that you only want to pay half the price they are offering. After almost two weeks in Peru we start to know how much we should be paying for taxi rides, that helps a lot. But the best tip is to go a couple of meters away from the terminal and taxi drivers are always more reasonable in the price they are offering and accept easily to discuss it. We caught a cab for S/4 to go to Ormeno terminal from the Mobil Tours terminal where we arrived from Huaraz. Luckily next to Ormeno terminal there was a Flores bus departing at 6am to Ica (the first bus to Ica with Ormeno was at 8am). We paid S/15 each for the ride. The bus picked up/dropped passengers all the way long as per the passengers requests and let people come in to sell food and drinks. On our way we saw Pisco, the city destroyed by the earthquake in August, this year. It seemed that only the poor houses built in adobe had been destroyed and are now partly rebuilt. The houses in concrete looked like they had not been damaged by the earthquake. We could see a few tents probably for the people still homeless after the earthquake. Approching Ica we noticed that the desert was different from the one we saw on our way from Lima. It was not a mix of sand and stones, but only dunes of sand. We arrived in Ica after a 4h trip and straight caught a cab to the Laguna Huacachina for S/4. This is an oasis in the middle of a miniature desert. Very nice place, quiet and relaxing. It was a great fun to climb the dunes. You can also snowboard down the dunes, we did not try, we just enjoyed to run down the dune! It was very tiring to walk up the dunes, we found out a bit too late that it is easier to walk on one of the side of the dune...of course we were walking on the wrong side nearly up to the top! Also Gosia found out that it is not a good idea to climb dunes in sandals as the sand is very hot :). We felt we could have stayed longer in this place, there are plenty of hostels, hotels and restaurants to choose from. You can also go and camp in the desert for a night (and help to clean the desert as there are plenty of rubbish). We went back to Ica by taxi (S/4) to catch the Flores bus at 3.30pm (this company has buses going to Nasca every hour). After a 2h30 trip we arrived in Nazca. We saw very nice desert landscapes along the way. As usual, people jumped on us at the bus terminal to offer taxis and hotels. But unusually we decided to follow one woman who was offering to take us to the hotel we had chosen in our guide. We ended up taking a room in another hotel she showed us....what a mistake, the room and bathroom were ok, but Laurence has been very badly bitten by small insects during the night. Second mistake we booked a tour to see the Nazca Lines with her for $50=S/150 (she initially asked for $60), as per our guide it was an honest price, but we found out on the next day that the standard price for a flight over the Nazca lines is $40+S/10 for the airport tax (=S/130).
Well we paid S/20 more than we should have! Good lesson, in the future we will stick to our rule, don't follow the people waiting for tourists at the bus stations!
Well we paid S/20 more than we should have! Good lesson, in the future we will stick to our rule, don't follow the people waiting for tourists at the bus stations!
