Hi everyone

Apologies (again!) for the lack of action on the blog. I had a fantastic three weeks travelling through the south of Perú and am now in Sucre, Bolivia, on my second tour. The photo above is of the San Francisco church in La Paz, where I spent a couple of days. It´s a busy, bustling city with lots of narrow, steep streets. At first I wasn´t sure if I liked it so much, but after having a look around yesterday with some of my new tour companions, I like it! There was a massive parade to commemorate their equivalent of O Week. The parade went on for hours and hours and hours. The party was still happening when we left the city for Sucre in the evening, so it must have been going for at least eight hours! We even managed to get in the parade at one point!

All the different faculties were represented in the parade and there were some amazing costumes and lots of dancing (this being South America! They love dancing, and any excuse for a party it seems. I like this place!).

Anyway, here´s part one of a quick round-up of the Andean Discovery - Lima to La Paz tour. (I don´t have the trip notes with me, so I´ll probably forget stuff!)

Day One was spent in Lima as a free day. I had a look around the barrio we were staying in, Barranco. I really liked it. We were close to the beach and the place had a really good vibe to it, and lots of lovely architecture. I´d heard only good things about Miraflores, which is where I stayed when I first arrived in Perú, but I didn´t think it was that great. Perhaps I wasn´t staying in the flashest part of it. At any rate, I preferred Barranco over Miraflores.

I caught a taxi into the city to the Monastery of San Francisco, which my fellow volunteer Elin had recommended to me. The church was closed unfortunately, but I took a guided tour of the other parts of it, including the cloisters (one American guy behind me said the guide must have made the word up, because there´s no such word as ´cloisters´! Dick! I´ve seen many cloisters when I´ve been to cathedrals in the UK, I love them!), a very old library that looked like it was out of a Harry Potter movie, and the catacombes! I tried to get to the catacombes in Paris a few years back but walked past them several times before I realised, and by then they had closed. So I finally got along to some this time. They were kind of creepy, and the place had a strange smell to it. There are thousands of human remains down there. Well worth the visit. A lovely place (the monastery, not the catacombes!). Check out more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monastery_of_San_Francisco,_Lima

I then went for a walk and found myself at the Plaza de Armas, which was lovely and very busy. I had a little look around, although not too much as I was a bit wary about bag thieves and such. I was fine as it turned out, but given that I´d never been into the city and had read stories about thieves, I didn´t want to take any chances. After watching a wedding in the big church there, I clutched my handbag tightly and went to do some more exploring in the heat (although no sunshine! Never saw the sun in my time in Lima!). I walked around the streets, got some lunch and ended up in a huge Chinese street market that went on for a few blocks. I was the only white person there for much of the time! I generally wasn´t bugged though, and it was fun. There was lots to see and if I wanted to, lots to buy. After walking to the end, I came across heaps of taxis and went to several of them asking if they went to Barranco. Most of them said they didn´t, although I didn´t know why, and those that did wanted to charge me almost double what it cost to taxi in. So I walked back through the market and ended up in a different part of town and managed to get a taxi that would take me back.

I killed a bit of time wandering around Barranco again and then it was time for the tour meeting. I met all but four of my fellow travellers (the others joined us the following morning). After meeting with our awesome guide, Julio, two of the girls (lovely Irish teachers Edel and Bridget) went to a light show and the rest of us went to dinner and a little wander about.

Day Two had us all up at a fairly civilised time, and I got in a walk to the beach and a bit of time at the local internet cafe before we all headed off on a nice public bus to Ica/Paracas.

The scenery was pretty amazing. I didn´t realise, but the Atacama Desert extends into Perú and we were driving along it! On one side was the desert and on the other was the Pacific Ocean. Amazing!

Ica was hit by a large earthquake in about 2007 and even now there´s not really much to see. But we didn´t spend much time there anyway. We got off the public bus and into a minivan to go to our hotel and then met up to have a look at the waterfront and dinner. It was a good chance to get to know each other. There were two other Kiwis on the tour, husband and wife teachers Luke and Rebecca.

Day Three most of us were up bright and early for our boat trip to Ballestas Islands. It´s been described as the poor man´s Galapagos Islands, but I think that´s a bit unfair. Although I´ve never been to Galapagos, so what would I know?! The ride in an open air boat was a bit bumpy at times, but it was the fumes that got to me and made me (and some others) feel a bit sick. It was great being out there and seeing all the animals though - over half a million birds! And I didn´t get pooed on once!

After we got back we headed to Nazca, stopping for a pisco tour (and taste) along the way and also at an oasis in the desert - Huacachina. The others went dune blasting on the huge sand dunes (as big as some very big hills!) while I checked out the small town centre. If I´d thought about it, I would have tried to walk up one of the dunes for a good shot of the oasis, but it didn´t occur to me. I met up with the others later for a delicious lunch, and we set off for Nazca. The scenery was changing but it was still stunning.

Not too far out of Nazca we stopped off at a tower that, for the sum of S/. 2 (about NZ$1), you could climb to see about three of the famous, mysterious Nazca Lines. I so wish I´d done that! Even though they weren´t as visible as from the air, it still would have been better than what was to come the following day.

Day Four dawned and I was all excited about jumping into a tiny plane to see the famous Lines. Oh how I wish I hadn´t! I´d never been in such a tiny plane before (it took seven of us, including the two pilots) and wasn´t pressurised. So from the get-go I wasn´t feeling too flash, as the pressure was pushing the big headphones onto the top of my skull. It wasn´t nice. But that was nothing compared to what happened every time we came to a Line drawing. A pilot explained that when we came to one, the plane would basically go sideways in the air, with the tip of the wing pointing to the drawing. I didn´t really hear this but figured it out very quickly at the first drawing. And they did it twice for each drawing so people on both sides of the plane would get to see them. Each time we came to one, the plane would do a big dip and the pilot would say "down, down!". I was thinking, "no, no!". After about the third drawing (of about nine), I´d pretty much lost the will to live and had grabbed on to the seat in front of me, my breathing turning into something you´d expect to hear from a labouring woman! And then eventually I vomited. Three times.

I couldn´t get out of the plane fast enough when we landed and went to have a lie down on a bench. Ugh. I didn´t realise that was what the flight would involve, but given I can´t even do the little kids´ rollercoaster at Disneyland without screaming my head off in terror, I should have realised that maybe this wasn´t such a good option. I would rather do the glacier trek (when I was volunteering) ten times than do the Nazca Lines flight again! Oh dear!

That night we ´helped´ with a Pachamama meal at the hotel. It was basically like a hangi, and we all got to have a go at shovelling some dirt off it. There was delicious potatoes, carrot (just the one for all of us!), some cheese and meat. I had a surprise omelette turn up for me, which was lovely. We had some chicha, a drink made out of purple corn, which was sweet and refreshing.

We then headed off to our rooms to get our stuff for our overnight bus to Arequipa.

That´s it for now, as I have to go meet the team for our first night in Sucre! Hopefully I won´t be so slack with part dos!

x