Almost a Disaster

My worst fear about getting to Lima with almost a couple days to spare almost came true. When we asked our hostel to book us a bus for later tonight, she said "Well, that will be difficult," and shook her head. After looking up 4 companies, we found they were all booked and nearly ran to the travel agent down the road. Again, we were greeted with, "Hmmm.... That's not really possible." Luckily, we ended up scoring one seat for tonight and one for tomorrow morning. I jumped on the night bus, unable to suffer through another day of nothingness on the day bus.

After the stress of booking a bus, we had an easy morning eating brunch and staring at the waves. Later, we headed to Chan Chan, the ruins of an early civilization. The ruins were kind of... ruined by the backdrop of buildings and modern city life. After Cusco, it is hard to see ruins and not expect to be fully transported back to ancient times. Anyhow, we had fun taking pictures on top of mounds of sand, in front of mounds of sand, and next to mounds of sand. Lots of pictures of sand.


Dinner ran a little late, and after quickly saying goodbye to my friends, I rushed to the hostel to call a cab and to finish packing. I guess today was the day of poor planning. Even though it was 8:30, and my bus wasn't until 10, the receptionist said it would take over a half hour to get a cab here and I had better run down the street with all of my luggage and try to catch one at the intersection a quarter mile away. A little worried, I followed his advice, and after 20 minutes, finally caught a cab. I ended up arriving just in time to hop onto the most luxurious bus ever.

You know those photos in travel magazines of airplanes in Japan... The ones where instead of seats, there are beds complete with blankets and pillows? Well it is real, and it is called SuperVIP, pronounced suuuupervip (short i, not an acronym). Suuuuupervip is the best. I cuddled up to the nice lady and 7 month old baby 2 inches from my face, relishing the fact that I could eat a second dinner just because it is available all the while resting my feet horizontally, watching my personal TV, even if it is in Spanish and I am too tired to understand.

I slept like a baby. Mostly because there was a baby next to me and I woke up every time the baby did, but also because the completely horizontal seat was amazing. The lady next to me explained that I was basically the luckiest person ever because her husband found out he had to work and cancelled his ticket right before I purchased it. She said since it is a holiday (who knew?), she had booked the tickets two weeks ago! So I guess booking a day earlier wouldn't have really helped that much... In any case, lucky me, because otherwise I would be missing my flight to the US.