After our 26 hour flight from Manchester, via Heathrow and Miami we arrived in Lima, very thankful to find our bags had also made it.

24 hours in Lima were quite enough for us - it really isn´t the prettiest place to visit. Lima gets less than 7mm of rain in a year and everything is just grey and dusty- I don´t think it ever gets the chance to be cleaned. The central square is quite pretty, however it soon turns into little more than a shanty town. Another first impression was that Peruvians are very short! We actually feel reasonably tall for once!

We checked out the cathedral and got a personal tour from a girl who spoke broken English - this turned into a bit of a history lesson about Peru in general, seen as we knew so little of its past before arriving.

We stumbled across some type of religious procession on Sunday - it was spectacular. A vibrant array of colours, music, dance and costume. Some of the blokes were dressed up like wedding cakes and we were astonished by one sixtyish year old women who must have been all of about three and a half feet tall (not that we´re obsessed with how tall the people are).

Travelled to Pisco by bus where in the evening we sampled the local Pisco - we had never heard of it before but it is a very nice (and apparently famous) drink made from local wine spirit mixed with egg white.

The next morning we took a fast and furious boat out to the Ballestas islands. These are islands off the coast situated smack in the middle of the Humbolt current (recall from ES lectures) and so the seas are dead rich...yawn yawn. Anyway, this means that the Ballestas islands are covered in a few million different seabirds (including pellicans and penquins) and loads of seals and sealions. I´ve never seen so many. We passed the ´Candelabra´ which is this mysterious candelabra shape etched into the mountainside which strangely can only be viewed from the sea.

Then we travelled (on a little rusty bus - we are always travelling by local public transport, so that we get a true impression for the pace of life out here) to Wacachina (or at least thats how you say it). Wacachina is a little oasis village surrounded by desert. We piled into sandbuggies - big eight seater 4x4 buggies and went roaring into the desert. The landscape was amazing - we only went a couple of miles into the desert but there were dunes as far as you could see. These sand dunes are huge as well, you can´t really imagine them without seeing them. The one overlooking the town where I´m typing this, is over 2km high and is the biggest sand dune in the world. We then did the real touristy thing and using converted surf board thingys went sandboarding down the dunes - really great fun.

Next we travelled to Nazca. This place is famous solely for the Nazca lines, which if you do not know what they are, are mysterious lines and pictures etched into the surrounding landscape by the ancient Nazca civilisation. This morning we took a tiny little six seater plane ride to view the lines. The pictures include things like a hummingbird and monkey and they are really amazing when viewed from the air. The little plane was really great fun (if you ask me) because the pilot would bank steeply to the right so that the three people sitting on the right could get a few snaps out the window and then he´d bank right over to the left etc. Anyway, after about five minutes Sarah´s stomach contents were in the little plastic bag supplied especially for the purpose. Good job that for the rest of the day all we´ve done is laze by a pool in the 36 degree heat!

Off to Arequipa on the night bus tonight.

R&S

Cuzco - 28th October 2006

Well im afraid that the first bit of my first journal is to tell you about the nightmare journey we had from Nazca to Arequipa.... It was never going to be pleasant- 9 hours on the bus, overnight, on the most crappy roads ever...  and well, 2 hours in i got violent motion sickness-left over from the flying in a biscuit tin episode earlier in the day, so.... it was pretty rubbish, i got no sleep and Richard hardly slept either as he did an awesome job of looking after me and convincing me that; we couldnt stop the bus; we couldnt get off; and that we were nearly there, at various points throughout the night! 

Anyway, we finally arrived at yet another lovely hostel/ hotel and got a really nice room-perfect as i then didnt leave the room for 24 hours!!  Richard went to explore Arequipa for the day and periodically brought me water and crackers....yum yum!! 

 Thankfully, i felt a million times better the day after and managed to go with the tour group to Chivay.  As we moved into the valleys the landscape became a lot more hospitable and touches of green even started to appear!!  It was much more like the landscape i was expecting and a welcome relief after the desert like scape we have been experiencing!  We stopped a number of times to see wild herds (do they call them that??) of Alpaca and Llama and also to top up our coca intake!  Recommended because we were driving to a high altitude of 5000meters in such a short space of time. (coca, the raw form of our ´white happy powder´ is the local medication for any and every form of altitude sickness)  I was quite happy to have the softer coca tea version and the sweets the locals sell but Richard was much more hardcore and got the raw leaves and gritty stuff and chewed them like a native (he stank like a native too!) 

Thankfully, no one was very affected by the high altitude as it can be pretty nasty, we all felt a bit short of breath...and i felt a bit light headed...but then that could have been my 48 hour diet of water and crackers!!  We dropped back down to 3600m by the time we reached our hostel with magnificent views over the terraced valleys.  In the late afternoon we went to some hot springs, which were amazing, so beautiful to be sat there boiling hot under the water and freezing cold above with the mountains on each side as the day ended. hummmmm

Next day was an early start to see the condors at the colca canyon (twice as deep as the Grand canyon, or so they say, apparently there is some recent dispute as to what actually is a canyon and what is a gorge...bla bla) but hey it was pretty impressive!!  And we were very lucky to see 4 Condors flying very close.  In the massive, immense landscape it was really hard to gauge their scale ( 2 - 3m  wingspan) but they were definately big!!!

 Then back to Arequipa and this time i actually got to see the town.  It is the second largest city in Peru and a lot lot nicer- colourful and interesting windy streets, and a freindly feel :-)  I even managed to eat properly- how could i refuse the 200g steak and 2 glasses of red wine for 8 pounds??  ( back on travellers rations today  - dont worry Mum and Dad)

 Finally, today we flew to Cuzco, the most beautiful place yet.  A very different landscape again - almost Italian like with its terracota roofs. Tomorrow - we start the inca trail!! 

 Anyhooo, thats all folks, Sorry if i babbled will try to be more concise next time :-) lol, S x