Nazca Travel Forum

Hi,
I am planning to go from Lima to Cuzco via Nazca, to see the lines in January 06. The only viable option I have found until now is taking a bus to Nazca, sleep there, do the overflight, and continue on with the Cruz del Sur 8.pm. service to Cuzco, which takes 14 hours.

Is there any other option?
Is travelling by night bus dangerous? (I have been living in Brazil, so I am a little worried)

I've done the bustrip from Cusco to Ica, which passed Nazca. There's many buscompanies doing the Lima - Cusco thing so there will be other times that busses leave. Just check that one at tourist information or at the bus terminal.
All of em will take about 14 hours though and the road has many turns. It made me a bit dizzy. Drinking before getting on that bus might be a bad idea.
About the security issue of night busses. We took many and nothing happened on the nightbusses. My bag got stolen on a 3 hour busride during the day to Lima.
Just keep you handbag between your feet (not on the overhead compartment) and everything will be allright. Even if you put it on the overhead compartment things will be mostly allright.

There is danger traveling on the roads of Peru. Night travel is probably more dangerous than in the daytime. This is a danger you should recognize but there is nothing you can really do eliminate it. You can decrease the risk by traveling with better, more expensive buslines. I am not sure whether flying is safer or not in Peru with so many mountains. I believe traveling highways in a renta car or taxi is even more dangerous. I did travel by night because it saved me days of visiting.
The only option I would suggest is that you consider breakup your journey with more stops along the way. There is much to see between Lima and Nasca, Nasca and Cusco. Have a good trip.

Never take the Bus. Go back to Lima, and fly to Cusco. It is a safe ride, nobody will mug or steal from you, BUT I was sick for hours, from all the swich back, and change in altitudes. First annoying thing is that we waited for the 9 pm bus to Cusco, at the edge of Nasca, but the bus didn't come till 12 midnight. It was croweded and the lady sitting next to me smelled like llama excrament. It made me sick. I went to the bathroom at the back of the bus, and the door wouldn't open. Going around a curve, The door broke open, but smelled so bad I couldn't bear to go inside of it. A lap top computer escaped from the netting above in the overheard compartment and fell on my husbands head while he was sleeping. Nobody robbed us, our luggage was safe under the bus, but I was very sick, and the stupid bus driver would not give me my luggage and let me off the bus. Finally at Abancay I demanded to get off the bus with my husband and luggage. Of course by that time I had used every vomit bag on the bus. I was heaving chunks so violently that I pissed on my self, and was covered in vomit. I had altitude sickness, and swore that I was gonna die. By the way take some altitude pills - soroche - buy it at any drugstore for a few soles, 2 days before you go to Cusco take it. Especially if you decide to take that damb bus.

oh buy the way, my happy traveling companion, my husband with the slightly dented head read my reply and said I should add, "the scenery was amazing and nobody should miss it." Yeah it was nice, but I had to keep my eyes closed on the bus, or yak even more. When we got off at Abancay, we took a cab the rest of the way. And he is right the scenery will be worth it.

Thank you everyone for your great comments. I guess we will take the bus, after all. As I am quite resistent to curvy roads, I hope I will survive the windy road.

Cheers,

TAke alot of Soles, and no broken torn or chipped corners American bills,or Euros.
Noboby will take bills that have chips or tears, REALLY,
and nobody has small change either. REALLY So make sure you have lots of Soles. Especially in Cusco. The will expect you to just pay more, because they say they don't have change. Then they take off with you money and go around hunting up change. It takes along time before they come back with any. So get soles in Lima, and take new cripsy bills. Let me know if you didn't take my advice what happens to you.

I disagree with the above comment: never take the bus. Most of my travels in Peru and Bolivi awere made by bus, some nice 'tourist class' like Cruz del Sur and some really derelict local buses too. You have to accept that you are in South America, not Europe or the US and go with the flow. Yes,sometimes you have a not so nice-smelling passenger near you on local buses but when it's -20C and the only washing option is a cold tap outside, I would not wash that often either!!!

However, I would not recommend night buses especially between Cusco and Nazca. There has been some robberies on the night buses on this route a while ago. They arrested some people back in 2005 but I got the impresion at the time that it was endemic.

So in summary: day buses= safe
Night buses = avoid if you can

A.