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Hello,
Now I´m in Nazca with Catherine in a random v isolated hotel. I met Catherine on thursday night in Lima airport and we got a taxi to our hotel arriving in the middle of the night. My first impressions of Lima were that it is just another big city. The hotel is in one of the wealthy areas, so safe. And there was the most amazing supermarket round the corner... nicer even than waitrose! On Friday morning we got a taxi to the old centre, Plaza Major. My taxi negotiatig skills have improved significantly and I managed to bargin to a reasonable price. There are people selling all sorts of things in the middle of the street. One of the strangest ones was a man skipping the middle of 4 lane traffic trying to sell skipping ropes! Plaza Major has the Palace on one side with the cathedral and other important buildings around the other sides. We arrived in time to see a military bacnd parading behind the palace gates. The centre had a lot of police with riot shields and a few tanks. They were pretty friendly though and didn´t mind pics being taken.
First stop was the San Fransisco church. This is really ornate and mass was in progress. Attached to the church there is a monestary and catacombs that hold the bones of around 70,000 people. After lunch at a local seafood place (with Ceviche.. a pickled fish dish...v tasty) we went on to the headcorters of the Spanish Inquisition in Lima. They were in power for a couple of hundred years and we had a gruesome tour of the holding cells and torture rooms. That afternoon we went to Larco Mar... a set of restuarnats and shops built overlooking the Pacific. The ocean here looked brown and horrible and the centre was built mainly for the wealthy and the tourists... not exactly authentic but it was kind of nice to get away from the continual harressment on the streets of the old town. We met our group who we´ll be touring with at 6.30pm in the hotel. We are a group of 10 plus the guide. 5 English, 2 S Africana and 3 New Zealand guys. Between our group we could probably start a business... 2 accountants, 1 civil servant, 2 IT guys, 1 Lawyer, 3 engineers, 1 marketer! It´s a little strange as the group is a v different mix to that on the Galapagos. Not as international as I´d hoped and 2 couples. I think we´ll have fun though.
Saturday 13th December
In the afternoon the group met to start our tour proper. We went to the bus station and got a public bus to Pisco. This took about 4 hours... not so long and brilliant to leave Lima.Pisco is a small town that was flattened by a major earthquake last year. It has lost most of it´s tourist trade and most of the town is still just piles of rubble. Our hotel was nice and at 3 stories the highest building about. The town has loads of tuk-tuks and stinks of fish! After dinner andpisco sours (dangerously drinkable!) at the hotel we went for a wander and found that we were pretty much the only gringos in the place. The locals were all out in the square and a comedy act on the street made sure that we were centre of attention!
Sunday 14th December
We were up ealry this morning for a trip to the Ballesta Islands. These are Peru´s mini Galapagos islands and sit about 30 min boat ride from Pisco port. We saw about a million birds.. the islands were coated in them... really impressive but not quite a pretty as Ecuador. Also: pelicans that were about the same size as the Galapagos ones but with more colourful bils (Blue and green instead of grey), Humboldt penguins (and more than 1 this time!!), Peruvian Boobies (which look the same as the blue-footed variety except they have grey feet) and a load of sea lions. The sea lions here were bigger than those on the Galapagos. And the islands were incredibly smelly but amazing. Worth a visit but I´m really glad that I didn´t stay on these for 1 month!!! Guana is collected here (bird poo) once every 7 years.
Afterwards we got a bus to a winery for some Pisco tasting. The weather is soooo hot and the alcohol (40+% does not feel like such a good idea in these temperatures! Then onto to abus for the 4 hour trip to Nazca. The scenery we passed through was amazing. Enormous sand dunes turning into mountains. Also sand and flat planes as far as you can see. I didn´t expect desert here. Tomorrow we´re flying over the Nazca lines.... I´m a little scared of the tiny plane but the view must be worth it!
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