Plaza La Bandera

After visiting Machu Picchu, we decided – when we booked the tour – to take the bus back to Cusco. It will take us 6h which is much more longer than the train but it’s free instead of paying 70$ for the train. This was definitely the wrong decision; but let's tell the crazy story that happened to us:

We got picked up at the meeting point from the bus which should have taken us back to Cusco. On the way back we stopped in Santa Teresa, where we stayed two nights before, to buy some water and using the toilets. What we didn't realized was, that the driver changed. Close to Santa Maria, where we stayed the first night of our trip, the bus was suddenly stopped by the police. At this point our ride turned to be worse: Our driver didn’t have a driving license so we had to go the next police station in Huyro. We first didn’t get what happened, till some spanish speaking tourists told us the facts. We spent nearly 2h with waiting and talking to the police till finally a new driver appeared. We were very happy because we had 4h more to go to Cusco and everybody was looking forward to have a shower.

But then we more and more realized that the new driver had some problems with driving the car. When we asked him if he knows how to drive minivans he just said: yes, yes he just needs to get used to the car. But after almost driving over the edge twice and nearly crashing into a truck it was enough. People were screaming and nobody in the car felt comfortable and safe. Even a peruvian couple felt scared. And the answer of the driver that he has not his glasses on didn't help. So we asked him to stop. In this moment we luckily came into another police control. We think it was the first time that we were very happy to see the police! We were in the middle of nowhere and it was already getting dark. We spent more than 1h by the police talking and asking for help. We hadn't even signal to call somebody to pick us up and the next town with WIFI was a 2h walk. The police didn't want to help us. They just said we should go back into the bus we were before, with the same driver. We don't know what exactly the duty of the police is in Peru but we thought they had to care about people and their safety. At one point the police said goodbye and left us with our bus and bad driver. All european people of our group didn’t want to go back in to this scary bus. So the only thing we could do was to hitchhike, but with 9 people it was not too easy.

After a few trials, suddenly an official bus passed by. Even it was the wrong direction we could arrange that he takes us back to Santa Maria. We asked him if the bus returns to Cusco and luckily he did! But we had to drive 2h further in wrong direction to a town called Quillabamba. It was actually quite an interesting place because there were no tourists, so we saw the real Peru. When we arrived, we were like an attraction and some people called loudly “gringos are coming”. We had dinner for only 1.50 $ for a whole menu. After an additional 8h drive we finally arrived safe in Cusco at 6.30am in the morning instead of 8.00pm the day before. So it wasn't like expected but still a good experience.

The only good thing about this unexpected trouble was, that we saved our cash for one night in the hostel and got the money back from our travel agency for the bus drive, because we could give them an official paper from the police. Luckily we are still alive!Read more