Pisco Sours

Yesterday, after finding the correct bus station, we purchased two tickets to Pisco on the Flores double-decker bus.   Our tickets cost us 17 soles ($6) each which is quite a bit cheaper than some of the other buses.   However, since we were only going about 3.5 hours south, we decided to go with cheap as opposed to extra comfort.  It turns out that it was still pretty comfortable.  We definitely recommend asking for the first row seats in the upper deck.  They have a bit more legroom than the other seats, and a much better view of the journey.  Here are a few pictures from the drive:

During our journey, we noticed that the buses in Peru are a bit unpredictable.  Our bus stopped at all of the scheduled bus stops along the way, sometimes just roadside.  Additionally, it occasionally stopped when someone flagged it down and other times, didn’t stop for someone attempting to flag it down.  There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason.  In between the random stops, our bus driver would ride the back bumper of the next car before recklessly overtaking with no regard for oncoming traffic or our safety.  Eventually we arrived in Pisco unharmed and easily found the Pisco Sin Fronteras volunteer house where they fed us a nice hot meal and helped us to find a hostel down the street.

Our day starts at 7:30 in the Pisco lot where breakfast is cooked and served by volunteers.  The group meeting begins an hour later and it is here that the everyone picks their jobs for the day.  Seniority definitely rules, which is a bummer for two newbies.  Today, Todd managed to get put on a crew working on "Erica's house".  His job entailed building a frame of a house and tacking tarp over and around it to make a two bedroom dwelling with a kitchen area for the 5-person family.  Kristina was assigned to dinner duty which consisted of visiting the extremely hectic market for supplies and spending the rest of the day chopping and cooking for 50 people.  Here is a photo from the market:

Pisco Sin Fronteras may be Pisco Sin Kristina and Todd soon.  We finally had our first warm shower in four days (we had to use the owner's personal shower).  That fact combined with bugs, dirt, separate beds, and "manana" attitude has led us to entertain the idea of other options for our future.