We asked the day before at the tourist office about travelling to Pisco on the coast by bus. They assured us there was only one bus and it left at 4am. Ok. So, up at 3am and taxi to the bus office and lo and behold there are 4 other buses and a van all leaving from different companies but going in the same direction at the same time. Our bus was the last to arrive and was a small 25 seater and there were at least 50 people plus all of their huge baggages (twice the size of our huge packs!) to be fitted into and onto it. Yes they did it!
We stayed on the bus to its destination which was a small town called Castrovirreyna, it arrived there at 10 am and we figure went an average of 20 kilometers an hour. It was a cold trip and there was snow on them thar hills and ice in the rivers.
At Castro it was market day hence the huge packages, we caught a collectivo car from there to Pisco and were treated to another magnificent journey through huge hills and valleys.
This second journey was 152km long and took from 11am to 3.15pm. The first 65kms took 2hrs 40m and then we hit the seal and the last hour and a half we covered 85kms.
Pisco is a dusty broken city, it was devastated by an earthquake in 2007 and is still on the road to recovery. We completely forgot to take any pics. We stayed at Hostal Tauro for 15s a night and had a hot shower. Food was more expensive there too 6s per 'menu' meal.
We stayed only one night then moved on to Ica.
