Hola from Nazca, Peru!

PERU IS AMAZING! The last few days have been amazing, and the time is flying by! We have already made our way quite far south from our starting point in Lima, travelling first on monday night to Pisco on the coast. Pisco suffered a devastating earthquake under a year ago and is still very much in recovery, with rubble and half destroyed buildings on every street. And yet everyone there was so optamistic it was fantastic. Pisco is also famous of course for its Pisco Sours cocktails, of which we felt obliged to sample a few - as our tour leader said by drinking them we are at least putting money back in to the area to help people rebuild their lives! A handy excuse but they were so delicious anyway!! From Pisco we travelled a little further along the coast to the Ballestas Islands early on Tuesday morning. Set 35km off the coast of Peru they are home to many species, including many bird colonies, sea lions and penguins on the stunning backdrop of the rocky island. We travelled to and around the islands in a speedboat which allowed us to get really close to all the animals. Tuesday afternoon was spent at a Pisco factory briefly, and then we headed on to the most amazing deserts in Ica where we went out onto the sands in Sand buggies and tried sandboarding - both awesome and two of the coolest things I have ever done!! There are no words to describe the scenery, I will try to get some pics up in the next few days! We finished yesturday with a group BBQ (with more pisco sours!) once we arrived in Nazca.

Today we headed out of the centre of Nazca to a pre inca cemetary where we saw lots of skeletons and mummies! Bit creepy but fascinating all the same. After that it was time to head to the Nazca lines, one of the greatest mysteries of Peru. The only way to really see the lines is overhead, so we embarked on our journey in 4-seater planes which hovered over each of the 13 shapes in turn. Having been in two minds about whether or not to do the plane trip due to some horror stories I have heard about the plane ride being awful for travel sickness (even the toughest of stomachs have problems on a bad day!), I woke up feelign courageous this morning and went for it. I have absolutely no regrets, although I definately would have been sick if I had had any breakfast (a wise move not to have any!) and I practically fainted when I got off the plane and had to lie down for an hour with my feet raised before I was able to stand again!! (luckily I had been on the first flight so I had time while the other groups went to recover). Feeling absolutely fine now after a good picnic lunch witht the group and a lay in the sun this afternoon! This evening we embark on another overnight bus trip to Arequipa, arriving there at 9am approx tomorrow. Waiting for us there are some more mummies and some thermal spas on the way to the Colca Canyon.

As first impressions suggested, the group are a really good bunch, all sorts of ages (19 to 50) and my roomate Becky is totally on my wavelength so feel like i've got a good buddy for the next three weeks. I have a feeling my time in Peru is going to fly by, we seem to have crammed so much in already!

Thanks for all your messages everyone, and miss you already too annie! hate to say it when you are stuck at work again but you would love Peru, def pop it on your list of places to return to! Sending you a big cuddle.

Miss everyone loads, hoping to get pics up soon as they are out of this world.

Sarah x x x x x