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After arriving in Chivay I checked into my hotel, it was just on the outskirts of town and seemed very nice...I had a great view from my room. I'd thought that I had a free afternoon and evening to fill but was called by the agency I'd booked my trip through and told that the group I was doing the Colca Canyon tour with the following morning were already in town and I could chose to join them for the afternoon/evening activities.
It sounded like a good idea to me so I was soon picked up by the minibus and taken to join them for lunch at a restaurant on the edge of town...an all you can eat buffet for only 20 soles (about £5!). We then had a couple of hours of free time until we headed to the thermal baths late afternoon.
These were on the outskirts of town and there were 3 baths to chose from...2 outside and 1 inside. We went for one of the outside ones (the inside one looked a bit dirty and stank of sulphur!) and spent the next hour having a relaxing soak. The water temperature was 38 degrees and it was quite cold outside and raining so it took a while to get into the water as it felt so hot!
After the baths we were dropped back at our hotels to shower and change before being picked up for dinner. We ate at a restaurant close to the centre of town and had a set menu. While we ate we were entertained by some dancers demonstrating some local dances...a dance of love, a dance about farming, a dance about malaria and finally a dance where the male and female dancers swapped clothes. It was a very amusing evening and we'd been warned it would require audience participation....I made sure to sit as far from the dance floor as possible but typically was picked out first and made to join the dancers! By the end of the evening we were all up on the dance floor....a little bit of deja vu from the evening on Lake Titicaca!
We had an early start the next morning to head to the Cruz del Condor in the Colca Canyon. Enroute we stopped in the villages of Yanque and Maca to see their plaza's and village churches...both were very pretty. We then hit true canyon country and drove through some pretty spectacular scenery. The farming terraces built to enable agriculture on even the steepest parts were pretty impressive. We reached the Cruz del Condor by 9am and had an hour to look out for Condors, the second largest flying bird after the albatross. They have a wing span of 3-4 metres but only a small body so are unable to flap their wings, instead they have to glide.
Early on we spotted 5 of them very low below us and they circled for quite some time but were too far away to see properly and they didn't seem to be getting any higher. Nearing the end of our hour and just after lots of buses had left, we were about to give up and head off ourselves when our driver came running up shouting 'condor'! All of a sudden three of them appeared very close overhead (an adult and 2 children) and proceeded to give us a fantastic show for the next 10 minutes, swooping and diving and at one point flying only a metre or so above the heads of us all. It was pretty amazing to see and our guide told us we were very lucky to see them so close.
With the condors successfully spotted, videoed and photographed we jumped back in the bus and headed back to Chivay, via a couple more viewpoints, for another buffet lunch (I tried alpaca at this one...tastes very gamey but looks a bit like pork) and we then hit the road for Arequipa.
We arrived in Peru's second biggest city late in the afternoon. I overlapped again with my Drago group here and had arranged to stay at the same place as them, La Casa de mi Abuela (the house of my Gran). It was a beautiful old colonial house with massive grounds, hammocks and best of all a lovely swimming pool. I arrived to find everyone beside the pool and joined them for some late afternoon sun and later some pre-drinks by the pool. It ended up being one of the messiest nights I had in my whole time in South America....we went out to a couple of bars and a club called Deja Vu, lots of boozing and dancing!
I had the next day free to explore the city before catching a night bus to Ica. After a fairly lazy start and a much needed breakfast a group of us headed off to see Juanita the Ice Mummy who is located in a museum off of the main square. Juanita is a mummy of a young girl who is believed to have been sacrificed during Inca times as a gift to the God's following a natural disaster. She was discovered in 1995 in the crater of a volcano on the outskirts of Arequipa after a group had summited to take photographs of a neighbouring volcano that was erupting (the ash and smoke from this volcano had melted a thick layer of ice at the top of the volcano where Juanita lay and it was this that helped with her discovery). The museum included a short video with the story of how she was found as well as artefacts found during the excavation of her grave and the graves of other child sacrifices found on the same mountain. We were given a guided tour explaining what was found where and the final exhibit was Juanita herself, in a clear sided freezer, kept at -20 degrees to preserve the mummy. It was a really well done and and really interesting, if not a little gruesome, exhibition!
After visiting Juanita I'd been recommended to visit the Santa Catalina convent, a city within the city, which has been opened up to the public and is a very popular attraction in Arequipa. It was a beautiful place, very peaceful and there was some amazing architecture. I was able to walk around by myself looking at the cells where the nuns had lived (I'd expected single bare rooms but they were more like small apartments complete with kitchens and small terraces), cloisters and other communal areas such as the kitchens, the laundry, the bathrooms and also the chapel where they attended services separated from the public by wooden bars.
After an hour or so wandering around the convent I had some lunch, did a little bit of shopping and returned to the hotel for an afternoon by the pool. Before heading off to catch my night bus I went for dinner with a couple of guys and then said final goodbyes as our paths weren't going to cross again in the last week of my trip. With a little bit of trepidation (I'd heard lots of bad stories about theft and other problems with night buses) I then headed to the terminal to catch my bus to Ica. As soon as I arrived at the terminal I was pretty impressed...there was a baggage check-in area so you could get rid of your bags straight away and even a departure lounge. I was even more impressed when I jumped on the Cruz del Sur bus...I'd paid an extra 20 soles (approx £4) for first class and this was a separated area on the ground floor of the bus with wide, leather covered arm chair like seats that reclined almost to 180 degrees. We had blankets, pillows and a meal provided...there was even a movie and wifi...shame buses in the UK aren't more similar!
I ended up having a pretty good nights sleep and woke up when we reached Nazca at 7am. It was another 2 hours drive to Ica and we arrived just after 9am. The hotel I'd booked had sent someone to collect me and after a bit of confusion (he thought he was looking for an English guy called Chris!) I was in the cab on my way to the oasis of Huacachina. This is a small resort on the outskirts of Ica, in the middle of the dessert. It's built around a lagoon that people used to be able to swim in, although this is no longer recommended. It's a very surreal place and completely dependent on tourism...the only buildings are hotels, hostels, restaurants, tour operators and a couple of small shops...all the locals live in Ica rather than Huacachina. I'd booked a hotel that looked like it had a nice pool and I wasn't disappointed, by 11am I'd checked in, had some breakfast and was soaking up the sun!
I spent the majority of the day by the pool but by 4pm I'd had enough sun which was just as well as I'd booked to do a sand buggy/ sand boarding tour. I was with a group of 8 other people and the sand buggy was an oversized, open topped, go-kart type thing with a roll cage....very different to the dune bashing 4WDs I've been on in Dubai before. It was a lot of fun and very much like a roller coaster ride. We stopped a couple of times at the top of dunes to take pictures and then the real fun, the sand boarding, began. We weren't able to use them like snow boards and do it standing as it can apparently be quite dangerous if you're inexperienced, instead we used them like sledges and went down on our tummies. It was quite an adrenalin rush zooming head first down a dune and you were able to pick up quite a bit of speed if you didn't use your feet to brake too much!
After the sand buggy tour I'd arranged to join William, the guy who'd picked me up from the bus terminal and was a tour guide for the hotel I was staying at, for a group evening wine tasting tour....only it didn't turn out to be a group tour and it was only me taking part that evening. I'm still not sure whether there was a miscommunication or whether William was just trying his luck but one of his first suggestions was that we go for dinner before the tasting, which I politely declined! To give him his due though William did take me to a couple of the local vineyards and gave me some really good information on the local Pisco industry. I also got to try some of the local Peruvian wines and different types of Pisco, as a fan of dry wines I wouldn't recommend any of the Peruvian wines...they're all incredibly sweet and much like a desert wine. The weirdest thing was that all of the vineyards seems to become nightclub type places in the evening and in both places we visited there were locals clearly enjoying a good night out. William did ask if I'd like to dance but again I politely declined and told him I was tired from the night bus journey the previous night (!) and would prefer to head back and have an early night and he duly took me back to the hotel. A bit of an awkward evening overall but interesting nonetheless!
The next morning dawned and I was on a bus again up the coast to Paracas. I was only a 1 hour journey though this time and by 11am I was checking in to the Hotel Paracas. This was a bit of a treat to myself...as there isn't much to see in Paracas other than an early morning visit to the Ballestas Islands, scheduled for the following day, I'd booked into a very nice 5* hotel so i could take advantage of the pool and spa. They also happened to run private tours to the islands directly from the hotel pier which was also very handy! The hotel exceeded my expectations and was simply stunning. I spent the remainder of the day chilling by the pool and soaking up the atmosphere.....it was the type of place you'd easily find in Miami or Ibiza. I'd managed to book in a massage for early evening so after enjoying sunset from my balcony I headed to enjoy my treatment, following which I enjoyed dinner in one of the hotel restaurants and had one of the best nights sleep I've had in South America in an absolutely massive king sized bed with the most comfortable pillows and softest bed linen ever!
My tour of the Ballestas Islands was early the next morning so after an early wake up call so that I could make the most of the buffet breakfast (eggs, omelettes, pancakes, fruit, cereals...you name it!) I was on the pier at 8.10am ready to head off on a 2 hour boat trip. It was disappointingly cloudy after the previous days sunshine but it was still warm and didn't ruin the trip. The Ballestas Islands were amazing....absolutely covered with birds (pelicans, penguins, boobies, gulls, cormorants etc) as well as loads of sea lions. The Peruvians harvest guano (bird droppings) from the island once a year and made a staggering 5.6million soles from it last year.
On the way back to the hotel we also saw a pod of dolphins, which made the trip and the sun had also come out, which boded well for my last few hours by the pool. Back at the hotel I spent my last afternoon at Hotel Paracas relaxing, having a much needed pedicure (6 weeks of wearing flip flops kills your feet!) and getting some lunch before heading once again to the bus station for my last bus journey in Peru.
The bus to Lima took 4 hours and was pretty comfortable. On arrival I as met by a taxi and taken the Hostal el Patio, a place that had been highly recommended by guidebooks and trip advisor alike. I wasn't disappointed as it was a very pretty hotel, again built from a colonial house, with lots of small patios and balconies and flowers everywhere. I had time for a quick change before heading out for dinner...I finally got to wear the silk dress I'd bought in Buenos Aires!
I had dinner in a restaurant called Astrid & Gaston which made it into the San Pellegrino Top 50 restaurants in the world. It serves Nuevo Andean cuisine so it was here I planned to properly try Peruvian classics such as Ceviche, Guy (pronounced 'gui', guinea pig) and Alpaca. I was a bit disappointed to find that as I was dining alone I couldn't have the tasting menu but they made some very good suggestions and it ended up being an amazing meal and every bit a good as I'd been led to believe by people who'd recommended it. The meal started with a selection from 15 different types of homemade bread followed by an amuse bouche of 3 different things...crab meat on a cracker with a mayonnaise dressing (I don't normally like crab but it was deliciously creamy), salmon ceviche in a small cone, and pureed potato topped with a sweet pepper filled with pork - all were yummy. Next I had tuna ceviche with guacamole and a mango & passionfruit dressing...the sauce was incredible. This was followed by the guy (guinea pig) which I was most nervous about eating as I'd heard stories of it being presented on a plate, head and all. I didn't need to worry though as here it was presented similar to peking duck with small pieces of guy (that looked like pork with a crispy crackling), pancakes, a carrot and cucumber salad and a peking duck style sauce...it was actually really tasty, although I 'm sure guy in your standard tourist restaurant wasn't anything like as nice! The next course was the alpaca which was served in 3 different styles....one a tartar type dish with tomatoes and lime juice, the other like slices of slightly pink roast beef with watercress and a mint sauce and the final a mini alpaca burger with banana and foie gras. It was very rich and I think the roast beef style was my favourite...it was interesting to try it in different ways though. The penultimate course was desert....raspberry compote and a creamy ice cream in a melting chocolate sphere...when it arrived it looked like a chocolate ball on the plate and they then poured hot chocolate over the top which made the sphere melt and revealed the insides. It was absolutely amazing! The final course was a fresh mint tea served with a selection of home made macaroons, jellies, truffles and a shortbread style biscuit sandwiching a creamy filling. The whole meal was absolutely amazing but I was stuffed and it was a slow walk back to the hotel afterwards!
The next day was my last in South America and my one and only day in Lima so I wanted to make the most of it. After an early start and a quick breakfast in the hotel I made my way to the old centre of Lima via the local metropolitan bus service. It was pretty straight forward and very efficient although I was very conscious of my bag as didn't want to get things stolen on my last day in Peru! Once in the centre I wandered around the Plaza Mayor, visited the Cathedral (that contains the tomb of Francesco Pizzaro - the Spaniard who conquered the Incas), visited the church, convent & catacombs of San Francisco (hundreds of thousands of human bones...freaky!), watched the changing of the guard at the Presidents palace (they played Jingle Bells) and wandered up towards Plaza San Martin that contains a statue of Jose San Martin who liberated Peru.
I then jumped back on the bus to Miraflores which is the main residential and commercial area. I spent a couple of hours exploring this area, along with San Isidro, which is a pretty affluent area (this was obvious from the types of houses and the number of them with security gates and in some cases security men!). I visited a pre-Inca pyramid, that's been excavated right in the middle of the residential area, and also walked by pre-inca community that's been excavated, again right in the middle of a residential square. After wandering around Park Kennedy at the centre of Miraflores I then headed towards the coast and the cliff tops. There were a number of different parks as well as a lighthouse and from here you could see lots of people surfing, even though I wouldn't say it's the nicest beach i've ever seen (and apparently there are problems with the water quality). My final stop was at Larcomar, a shopping and entertainment complex built into the cliffs. After a browse around the shops and a quick bite to eat it was time to head back to the hotel where I packed my bags for the last time and headed to the airport for my 21.30pm flight back to the UK.
So my South American adventure is over...it's amazing how quickly the last 6 weeks have gone! I've seen some incredible things, done some crazy activities, ate some very odd food (and very good food in Argentina!), and met some awesome people....there hasn't been a dull moment. Some quick stats....I've boarded 7 flights, spent more than 150 hours on the road in Amber or on a bus, taken over 2000 photos, gained an extra bag (full of alpaca products!), lost 5kgs (thanks salmonella!) and ended up 3 foundation shades darker....it's been an adventure to say the least!
I'll definitely be returning to South America as there's so much more so see so it's not goodbye....more of a 'hasta luego' (see you later)!
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