night travel on a peruvian bus - dangerous?

I believe the Lima-Nazca-Arequipa route is quite safe, I've done it a couple of times and I've never had a problem. I think most of the problems occur in the routes going to the central andes but not completely sure.

You always have to be careful, daytime or at night. For me, I didn't experience any bad things in Peru. I took day and night busses but it was safe to me. Just have your common sense with you and keep an eye on your valuables, then you should be fine. And if your bus will be stopped by armed criminals, well then there is nothing you can do about it so...... On my travels I took night busses and trains everywhere in the world and nothing happened, so why is it that everybody is afraid of traveling at night ? (this issue is covered many times on the forum). During daytime a lot of stuff can happen too and maybe more than you can imagine at first. But if you're still afraid of taking the night bus to Nazca, then don't do it.

I just did this two days ago from Nasca to Ariquipa and I´m still alive. I originally booked with Cial, but then the bus was delayed like 6 hours and they told us there would be an earlier bus (another one we could take), then half an hour that bus was supposed to arrive they told us, nope that one was going to be delayed. This was at 11:15 p.m. and we had enough time to book a bus on Cruz de sol that was leaving at 11:30.

i took the bus over night to nazca recently without a hitch, try to go with some of the more up market, tourist buses and you shold find them adequately secure (the company videoed everyone getting onto the bus for security purposes) also gave us baggage tickets. The company we went with is cruz del sur.

just make sure you take general precautions like using a money belt and not leaving passport, cash etc in your day pack as you will find this is any easy target for someone to snatch or slide under your seat and go through as two of my friends discovered recently.

generally all should be fine, pay that bit extra for a nice bus and keep you valuables close and within eye view!

I've lived in Peru for 2 years and have been on more night buses than I care to think about and have never had any problems, other than the person next to me snoring.

Still, precautions are necessary.
1. Use a reputable company (Linea, Cruz del Sur, Ormeño, ITTSA, Civa, Movil Tours)
2. Take a taxi to and from the bus terminal
3. Use a money belt and also have some cash in your main pack so if one goes you still have the other.
4. Take your own snacks and drinks, don't accept sweets etc from other people on the bus. The food from the bus company is okay, if a little bland
5. Take a direct bus - with no stops between destinations, there's less chance of your day pac being stolen

Generally, common sense rules apply. Don't be paranoid about other people on the bus but do be aware.

We are in Peru at the moment and agree with the above.

We have used lots of night buses, including across the Andes, without anymore problems.

In fact my partner had her day bag stolen only 3 days ago on the route from Pisco to Lima, at 2 in the afternoon. We didn´t even see that it had gone until we came to get off the bus. I guess we had become too relaxed after 6 weeks here without a problem. I suspect that they put it inside a shopper bag or something as we both keep our eye on people getting off the bus and saw no one with it. Luckily there was very little in it, just a couple of fleeces etc. No camera, money, etc. A stark reminder to us though.