Day 8: no bueno.

Today's plan was to travel from Cusco to Lima and then to board a bus for a 5 hour journey to Ica where we were going to go sand boarding and ride in dune buggies. However, not much really happened and we still don't know why. 

We boarded our 6am flight on time. Arrived in Lima around 730 and headed out of the airport around 8am. Traffic was horrid as it was Monday morning rush hour. It took us about 1.5 hours to get to the bus station where we thought we'd be boarding a bus pretty soon. But, it turns out that our tickets weren't until 1:30 which would put us in Ica at 6:30... after dark so no rime on the sand dunes. Plus we were not at a bus station with nothing to do for 4 hours. :( 

Thankfully our data on our phones was working and Michael find a nice pastry place to go called San Antonio. The cab ride was only $5 so we thought why not go explore the city a bit more. We had some yummy snacks and then walked over to the coast to check out Larcomar, a shopping mall right on the water. It was just opening, but we strolled around a bit, used their fancy bathrooms and got some snacks for the road. 

After an hour or so it was time to take a taxi back to the bus station. We walked up to a taxi stand and asked how much it cost. It sounded like 15soles to us which made sense because the ride out these was 16soles. It turns out when we got to the station they wanted 50 soles. Ridiculous!! Highway robbery. And lesson learned. Michael was frustrated and turned into Cookie Monster. 

We finally boarded the bus and settled into our fancy reclining seats with blankets and tiny tvs. Great stuff! 

We got to Ica in time for dinner. We were going to go to Tripadvisor's recommended Desert Nights, but it was packed, so we are at our hotel instead. It was good and we had some local Ica wine that was nice. 

Total bust of a day.