chacas, peru

Just for a two-day-vacation, and to see something different, I got up early and went to the bus station to go to Chacas. I was the only gringa, and I felt a little nervous, because I knew that we had to go through mountain roads and Peruvian buses are pretty rusty. It also didn’t calm me down that we had to put down our fingerprints before entering the bus.
And it turned out that my feeling was right. After a little while the bus stopped in the middle of the road and they had to fix something at the tire. But then we went on and after a while I lost my anxiety.
We went up serpentines, on one side the Huascaran and on the other side other snow-capped peaks.
And then, in a turn, the bus suddenly stopped. And then it started to roll down backwards, the breaks not working.
I already saw the bus falling down, but the driver managed to turn it and so we “only” crashed backwards into a wall. Everybody was scared and we got off the bus as fast as possible.
We were in the middle of nowhere, no phone service, not far from the Olympic pass but we didn’t know how far exactly it was. And it was cold, all that happened at an altitude of about 4,500 m.
The drivers started to work on the bus, but there was no way I would get on that vehicle again. Fortunately some other people shared this opinion and we decided to start walking – the view was amazing, there was nothing but the highest mountains of Peru. Some cars came by, but most of them were already full.
After about an hour, a guy from Lima and I found room in the trunk of a car, together with a third person. It was definitely not the most comfortable way to travel, but I by now I could already laugh about the whole situation and it was better than walking for another 4 hours. And we did arrive safely in the little town of Chacas, paying our new driver as it is the habit in Peru for a ride.
When I got to Chacas, I didn’t know what to do at first, and I didn’t see the guy from Argentina anywhere. But the town has a really nice main square, so I sat down and ate, and after that I walked around a little. After a while I ran into the Argentinian guy by accident and together we broght my stuff to the hostel.
The rest of the day I didn’t do much. We went to eat at a small restaurant – in Peru there are many options for a really cheap lunch menu. You get soup (I don’t because it usually has chicken in it) and then a huge portion of some meat or fish and rice and potatoes. Other than that I just walked around, read or drew, and after watching the sunset I had some good Peruvian chocolate cake.
Chacas is a very pretty but also quiet town, and people here seem to have no worries. But they’re also not used to gringos, and I don’t think they cared much.
But still, just what I needed to get out of Huaraz and relax for a little bit.
I only spent one night in Chacas before going back home, and I was quite nervous when entering the bus and going back on the mountain roads. But I made it back safely!