So we had checked into this little hotel after coming back from Mancora, we thought we should stay somewhere better than 'the dirty dog' as Matt refers to the hostel we stayed at in Lima to begin with!! Our taxi driver took us to a little hotel called Hotel Nirvana… definitely NOT Nirvana!!! It was ok, had the basics, cable, computers, shower was ok, small bed…. Pretty non interesting.

So we checked in then we were both incredibly hungover from our last day at Mancora then 18 hours on a bus! So we asked the taxi driver to take us to the closest Pizza Hut… we ended up at a shopping mall on a cliff on the Ocean with heaps of shops and food outlets etc. We had to wait an hour or so for Pizza Hut to open… meh things don't open till 12pm on the dot! It wasn't even worth the wait! The food was as horrible as the Pizza Huts in Australia (don't know why I was surprised there…) and I was still as hungover after that as I was before haha.

We went back to the same place for dinner but ate at a nice restaurant where I got a steak (medium means rare there apparently) and matt got ribs… half way through he realised some of it was raw… but (intelligently) he kept eating it!!

The next day we went and visited the Perivian family from Sale who lived about half an hour from the city (after we checked out of the hotel and left our luggage for when Judy called, and gave the receptionist our contact number to give Judy, the receptionist was LOVELY and instead told Judy that we had checked out, taken our luggage and gone to Cuzco!! We eventually called her and told her that no… we were coming!). We ended up at Judy's house and had some food with her and her son Martin. We tasted some traditional Perivian food with them, and I had a vegemite sandwich which was HEAVEN! Martin heated up some non-lard bread for me and I don't think I have ever loved vegemite as much as until that time!

We left in the afternoon with our bags and went back to Larcomar where we thought we would be able to find another hotel and not have to check back into Nirvana… the Marriot we discovered was too expensive ($275 US a night) but the bell boy was so nice he put our bags on his little wheely thing and took us a few blocks trying to get us another hotel! He said that he knew what it was like being in a new country and not knowing where to go! We didn't tell him we had been travelling for ages already… HAHA. He was lovely though but me and Matt felt too bad having him follow us while we tried to find somewhere we wanted to go. We ended up telling him we were going to stay at this dingy hotel so he would leave and then we told them we didn't actually want to stay there. After walking along more in the dark… me cranky as cos I hate walking in the dark in cities in South America, we ended up going back to Hotel Nirvana which at least we knew would be clean and have a room for us.

We thought we would move on quickly but no… Matt got sick from the raw pork he had eaten and we had to stay in Nirvana for another two nights! I was so bored while Matt was sick. I had to drag him to the pharmacy to get Panadol and drinks and stuff (I couldn't go out on my own cos its too dangerous there) and then to the supermarket to grab some food for me to survive on in crappy Nirvana where even the hot chips you order from there aren't cooked. I LOVED the supermarket though cos we ended up getting fresh bread, avocado, red onion and philly and made sandwiches in Nirvana which was heaven for me after the food I had been eating for so long.

I decided we needed to wait until Matt was at least a bit better and then we finally got a Bus (Cruz del Sur again which is an awesome bus company where we had leather seats and they reclined, they gave us food and drink and pillows and blankets… good bus company!) to Ica which is where we went sand boarding and dune buggying!

xo