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Hola mis amigos!
It's more than three weeks into the great South American adventure so I figured it was time to finally get cracking on this Blog.
Since leaving Dublin on September 12th to fly to Peru we've travelled the country extensively and have even picked up a few words of Spanish along the way.
Our first port of call was Lima, where I suffered my first culture shock during the white-knuckle taxi ride from the airport to our hotel.
The only rule of the road here seems to be that all drivers beep their horns incessantly as they weave in and out of the traffic at ridiculous speeds.
We spent a relaxing couple of days in Lima, mainly getting over the jetlag and bemoaning the fact that it gets as cold (if not colder) here at night than it is in Ireland at the moment.
Alan also had the opportunity to try some local cuisine when we met up with Claire Murphy's Peruvian boyfriend Gianmarco for dinner.
He sampled some cow's heart, liver and spring rolls filled with food from the jungle. (We still don't know what this entails- it could have been anything from snake to alligators we reckon.) Needless to say I wasn't quite as brave, sticking to my trusty friend chicken instead!
We also met Gianmarco for a second night during our return visit to Lima and had a lovely meal in Barranco, followed by a really enjoyable traditional Peruvian concert by Lucho Quequesana at La Noche.
One of the most surreal moments of the night was our visit to a nightclub in Lima afterwards.
Bizzarely as we were dancing to the Black Eyed Pea's 'Don't Stop the Party' a bunch of balloons came flooding down from the roof and the locals all began making balloon animals!
After our time in Lima we were in drastic need of some warmth and sunshine so decided to brave the 19hour bus journey up North to the beachtown of Mancora.
Surprisingly the trip wasn't as bad as we had anticipated as the 'VIP' tickets we purchased lived up to their name with big comfy seats, TV's and hot (tastey-ish) meals served on board.
Mancora itself is basically a large village erected in the middle of a desert.
There's not much to it, but we did enjoy hanging out by the pool and catching some rays at our hostel Kokopelli.
For anyone who finds themself there watch out for local Mancorian 'hotspot' Charlie Browns.
As I learnt the hard way, the place, in particular its' stairs should come with a health warning!
Foot wide gaps in between each step, combined with pitch black darkness (and maybe one local vodka too many) led to my right leg going straight through. It's still black and blue now.
Other things to watch out for in Mancora include the hungry, blood-sucking mossies, who had a right feast on Alan.... at last count he had 32 bites. I got two!
A definite highlight was our whale-watching trip. Despite my sea-sickness (again maybe induced from the Mojitos' consumed the night before) it was well worth doing.
We saw everything from humped back whales to sea-lions to schools of dolphins.
Since then we've travelled back down South, which I'll save for my next Blog post.
Bye for now,
Lor x
- comments
Lorraine Flood Ah missus, thanks so much for the update... I love the tagline 'celeb tracker to back packer'... Class!!! Sounds like you two are having a great time! Make sure you keep on top of this blog now and keep it updated, I'll look forward to reading it regularly :) Miss ya, Lorr xxx
Fiona Roche Love it xxx