Perhaps it was because we were very tired, but everything seemed to be going wrong for us in Trujillo. We reluctantly decided we would have to "take to the air" (thereby missing huaraz - which was a real pity and in retrospect a mistake). It was sunday and so not surprisingly the travel agents we found in the guide book were shut. We tried ringing the airlines but got a Spanish recorded message that made no sense to us.
We asked a cab driver how much to drive us to the airport where we assumed their would be a ticket desk - I understood 2 Soles (about 60 cents) - but he'd said 12 (the fault of my poor spanish). Which turned into 15 when adding the "getting into the airport tax" - and of couse we had to pay to get back again. Our intention was to fly to Nasca via Lima saving us a couple of days and getting us back in line with our itinerary. There were no flights available at all for the next day so it had been a big waste of time.
Back in the city we found a travel agent who was open, She informed us that the airport at Nasca was closed due to recent earthquake and that it was not possible to get through to Nasca via bus. The alternative was to fly through to Arequipa which was starting to get quite expensive. After much deliberation we decided to change our plans and head straight to Cusco after which we could do a loop via bus down to Lake Titicaca - possibly into Bolivia (LaPaz) time permitting then back via Arequipa.
It was a comedy of errors after that - it was confirmed there was no flight to Lima the next day so we visited the bus booking office and found there were only two tickets left. We hadn't confirmed the flights to Cusco yet, so we went back to the travel agents office and made our reservations. Then we walked around to the airline office to pay because the travel agent couldn't take visa. Having that confirmed we went back to the bus office to get our tickets only to find out that they were sold out. So we booked for the next day and decided to change our flight to one day later which we were told we couldn't do until the next day - although as it turned out we couldn't do at all as the ticket was non refundable.
It was a comedy of errors and we were tired and confused. In the end with the help of the owner of our hotel (Casa de Clara - to whom we are very grateful and we recommend the place very highly) we managed to get a bus to Lima that arrived late after midnight.
Of course as things turned out Nazca airport was open and busses went through from Lima - so the whole drama was a waste of time and we had payed a lot of money to get to cusco from where we would pay a lot of money to get back to Nazca - but that is just the way these things go.
In the end of course the blame is mine, it cost us a couple of hundred dollars and wasted a day or when we were trying to save time, but it wasn't a disaster. As I will describe later the day in Cusco was pleasant, the bus trip and flight their fine and the long haul to Nazca a challenge but no real problem.
The main problem I suppose was that my spirit was dampened by my failure to make better decisions, I felt a little stupid and incompetent travelling hundreds of kilometers out of our way and wasting hundreds of dollars (when our daily budget was only $25)- probably as much because I was tired and impatient as that I was misled.
Anyway after a long bus ride to Lima - in which yet another Steven Segal movie dubbed into Spanish blared out too loud along the way- six hours sitting in the airport and a pleasant early morning flight we arrived in Cusco - the incan "Navel of the world"
