After a two-day hospital stay, Guevara and Granado stay several nights at a Civil Guard post. On their fifth day in Andahuaylas, they find a ride to Ayacucho; Guevara remarks that the ride appeared "just in time…because Alberto had reacted violently on seeing Civil Guard soldiers insulting an Indian woman who had come to bring food to her imprisoned husband" (107).

The ride is cold and wet. The truck the men ride in also holds ten bulls, which are being taken to Lima. In exchange for the ride, they agree to help take care of the bulls. As the animals grow increasingly tired, they fall over, and Guevara and Granado must stand them back up so that they won't be trampled and die. At one point, Granado asks for help moving the horn of one bull away from another bull, whose eye it seems to be scraping. The young boy who is the bulls' main caretaker simply shrugs and responds, "Why, when all it'll ever see is shit" (108).

The men arrive in Ayacucho, where they sleep before catching another ride north.