Excitement coming back from Cayara.

The more I think of this journey the scarier it becomes in our minds, not only for what could have happened but also for what did happen.
About four hours from Ayacucho and just outside the town of Cangallo, Freddy, our driver, was very slowly negotiating a dry river causeway as a second bus raced past us and smashed off the driver’s rear vision. No other damage, just the broken mirror. The offending bus did not stop to see what had happened; he just drove on into Cangallo. We followed and proceeded to block his path and confront the driver. What followed was rather messy; the owner of their bus was on board and turned out to be a very angry and nasty woman.
All Freddy wanted was some form of compensation for the broken mirror, especially in the light of the fact that the bus was hired for this particular journey. In reality all he really got was a large amount of very verbal abuse and some pushing and shoving. We also had a very strong suspicion that many in the passenger bus had been drinking, however, not necessarily the driver.
While trying to settle the situation, some others of our party took off to get the police to attend. Seeing it had started to rain rather heavily they showed absolutely no interest in meeting with either of the two parties!
Eventually the other bus took off amid much waving and yelling and headed to Ayacucho. We followed them around the mountain roads in quite heavy rain and, at one stage, passed the bus as it either dropped off or take on passengers.
Freddy decided to ring the owner of our bus and organise him to meet us on the outskirts of Ayacucho in order to help us sort out the problem. This plan did not work, so as an alternative one, we organised to pick up an off duty policeman, handcuffs and all.
When this policeman managed to confront the driver he was simply abused and once again the bus drove off to a nearby bus depot. By this time we are well and truly in Ayacucho and the traffic was quite heavy and roads very wet.
Things then became quite physical, the female owner of the bus had really lost the plot and this incited others to follow her example and eventually Freddy was punched to the ground. This all took place on the footpath outside the depot and in front of the policeman. What did he do? Nothing!
What was the eventual upshot of all this? The owner of our bus has made Freddy pay for the new mirror because he did not have any insurance. The police were not the slightest bit interested to press assault charges due to fact that the incident did not happen in their district! And the owner and driver of the offending bus seem to have nothing to answer. It was also very interesting to note that the driver who initially smashed off the mirror was not the same driver who drove into the bus depot hours later!
As I said at the beginning the issues were not only what could have happened but also for what did happen.

Both photos show the roads we were actually driving, however, you have to remember that it was also raining at the time. The bottom photo was taken of the valley floor as I looked out the bus window!