Lonely Planet Lies

I can't stress enough how disappointed I am with lonely Planet at this point. Through my travels in Peru and Bolivia, Lonely planet has led me towards harm more times than I'd like to recall. I'm not being dramatic either.

What lonely planet has are tiny clues, tiny words like "may not" or "at first" that give you real insight into how an activity they are suggesting could actually be harmful to your health. They don't say this though because that would put too much of a damper on things and chances are you will be fine anyway.

Lonely planet grossly underestimates the danger of Peru bus travel. Almost a 1,000 people a year die in peru on their busses. The peruvian bus companies are filled with employees who got their licensing on the black markets.

And going to a tourist agency and paying more for a better bus wont really help your chances, one of the deadliest bus crashes in Peru happened on the much praised Cruz Del Sur Line, killing All on board in a head on collision. Not only that, we went to a tourist agency and were promised the world and when the bus arrived we found out we had been swindled onto a shitty bus line.

We took a bus from Copacabana to Arequipa, the bus was supposed to be an 8 hour bus ride. Lonely planet recommends that if you do take the bus, you should really make it a day trip. We took that advice and it didnt help a bit. Why? For many reasons, first they grossly lie about the trip length, and they stop frequently to pick up passengers in other bus stations and even just passengers along the road.

Our 8 hour bus ride turned into 23 hours and we found ourselves on top of a snow covered mountain passing by overturned tourists busses. We spent the night freezing because the bus had no heating. The bus didnt even stop for dinner and we were also just starving. Not only that, to go to the bathroom we had to just pee on the congested hwy while other cars honked and would turn on their lights to watch.

On that trip alone it was reported that 17 died, I believe many more died from the look of the overturned and abandoned busses on the hwy.

Lonely planet doesn't tell you about all the deaths because well...if you can't afford to fly, there's no choice for you anyhow and what good will scaring you do? But if you CAN afford to fly, you should really know the truth, and that is you need to fly. Don't end up on a hwy in a blizzard freezing, starving, and watching other people die.