A hoy hoy!

well, to start with, the activity category of bus tour is a slight over exageration.

i think "Bus tour from hell" is probably more accurate! in mendoza we worked out that we had the time to go to both peru and bolivia before our flight to New Zealand! we went to the bus companies, and after weighing up our options, we opted for a 48 HOUR bus journey directly to Nazca, Peru. the plan was simple, get there after 2 days, and have 3 weeks before moving on.

But no. El Rapido (HA!!!), the bus company, crushed our plan. it was all going swimingly well. we had got our food before hand, pizza, noodles, apples and crisps, and had even managed to smuggle it into chile (we were not aware they counted Pizza as a dairy product!, but the apple was an added bonus!) however, halfway into chile, after 30 hours, the bus broke down.

in my best "spanglish", i managed to work out there was a minor failure, and we would be on our way in 2 hours. i tld fran this with confidence. howver, 2 hours, turned into 28 hours! in the dessert! with no food! no air con! no films! no music! stuck with lots of spanish people... who did not speak a word of english! luckily we managed to have a laugh and communicate from what we had learnt in the month prior!

when the replacement bus finally arrived, it took another 2 hours for them to load the bags and do some more faffing. finaly, we were on our way. we were half way to our destination. time to suck it up, and get on with it.

15 hours went fine..........BANG!!!! disaster.... the REPLACEMENT bus, which was "perfect", broke down. a minor problem, one hour and we would go. i asked several time, asking 'verdad', 'verdad' - truth, truth? the answer was yes, one hour and we will vamos! in the meantime, a guy we met on the bus and his sister came outside swearing and very angry. i asked what was wrong, but i only got the basic jist of a guy on the bus was annoying him. i thought it was tirednes.

30 mins later, the police arrived! apparantly a guy on the top deck and thrown himself at my amaigo's sister, tryingto kiss and grab her. an "attack" i was told. WOW!!! a soap opera! i was waiting for the finish music, but it was obviously a feature length episode! the guy was arrested, thrown in the back of the police car, whilst the other guy, his sister, and the rest of the bus (including us!!) had a beer and a laugh at the criminal! sometimes maners just dont matter!

8 hourslater, we did vamos, with the criminal back on board.......... very slowly. in total a 48 hour bus journey, took 5 DAYS TO FINISH!!!!!

so this blog is jst to let you all know that we are safe! and althoughwe were on a bus for 5 days, we made some new fiends. learnt spanish, and had an eventful journey!

hopefully the next blog will have some pics, but i doubt the story will be as interesting!!