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We finally joined up with our tour group in Huachachina which is a desert oasis complete with massive sand dunes right next to the hotel - unfortunately we arrived too late to join in with the dune buggying and sandboarding. Our tour leader had left us really good instructions with how to get there from Lima with the choice of either a comfortable bus complete with airconditioning, a meal service and films, or a bus used more by the locals on which you are much more at risk of being robbed or being left behind if you get off to use the toilet! As you can guess we got on the first bus and had a very comfortable five hour journey. We are part of a really great group of people mostly in their thirties, made up mostly of Australians (our tour leader Mel, is also Australian), a couple from New Zealand, a couple from Hungary, a girl from Singapore and one other Brit, a girl from Colchester.
In Nazca we went on a tiny 6 seater Cessna airplane to view the ancient Nazca lines, which was a real experience and not for the faint-hearted as the pilot banked the plane right over to the left and right so that people on both sides could clearly see the lines. We were fine but some people were glad when it was all over! We got a few good photos but you have to look carefully to see pictures such as a spider, monkey, spiral, hands and condor. We also went to Chauchilla Cemetery which is an ancient burial ground in the desert. Some of the tombs had been opened up and we could see some of the mummyfied bodies and the objects they had been buried with. Many of them still had the skin and hair on them and you can even see the eyes and tongues on some - a little gruesome, be warned for when you look at the photos!
After that we began our journey up into the mountains and took a ten hour night bus journey to Arequipa (2600m above sea level) and then to Chivay (3500m) via the highest point we get to at almost 5000m! Needless to say many of us have suffered from altitude sickness with horrid headaches and nausea which went after about a day and hopefully that will be it!! We stayed in a fantastic hotel with amazing views of the mountains from our room window. We were up early to go to the Colca Canyon where Andean condors can be seen gliding really close to the cliff edge. We were lucky to see quite a few impressive birds gliding near by but unfortunately the pictures don't do justice to their magnificent size. Back in Arequipa we visited the Santa Catalina Convent where the nuns live today, but they have opened up the old private living quarters for the public to see how the nuns used to live before the simple life they lead now. It is a beautiful place where the nuns used to live in realtive luxury with many of their rooms bigger than our flat! We also visited the Juanita Ice Mummy museum to learn how the Incas sacrificed children on the mountains to please the gods, which was all quite brutal but very interesting. We saw lots of very well preserved artefacts from when explorers found burial sites on the nearby mountains which had been exposed when the active volcano melted the ice.
We are now in Cuzco, the Inca capital, for a couple of days before we start the Inca Trail up to Machu Picchu on Monday. We'll let you know how we got on in the next blog - if we make it!!!!
K & D X
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