Day 7-8: Arequipa to Cusco

After our stay in Arequipa, we took an overnight bus to Cusco.  Our thinking when planning this was that a gradual ascent in elevation would lower the risk of us experiencing altitude sickness.

The experience was one of the most harrowing experiences of my life.

1) Driving in Peru is an all-out free-for-all

2) The highways in Peru are not smooth

3) There are speed bumps on the highways (no joke)

The bus driver would often brake hard so as to not hit a speed bump at 90 km/hr, but taking mountain curves at 90 km/hr was just fine.

(There was actually a big display in the center of the bus with our current speed, and we were told that (for safety) the bus would not go faster than 90 km/hr (which is a little over 50 mi/hr), but then the speedometer would buzz loudly whenever the bus exceeded 90 km/hr, which was often.)

Needless to say, none of us slept well. I watched 3 movies (in Spanish, with English subtitles) just to distract me from everything else going on around me.

These are photos before the bus trip, we were too shell shocked to record anything afterwards...

The kicker is that we have two more big bus rides ahead of us.... on overnight and another during the day.

We are all very excited about that!