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I know, I know, it's been a while......so where was I. Ah yes, Cusco and meeting some Scotsmen for drinks. An interesting evening that included too much to drink, hippies shouting at me that I look like Jesus (my beard is rather large), one Scotsman telling another that "his heart is black" and a 8 year old girl calling us "f**ckers" (sorry mother) at 1am because we did not want to but her llama finger puppets!!
Anyway, we got up late the next day (no surprise) and caught our flight to Arequipa. Once there we took a wander round the town and got packed for a 2 day trip to the Colca Canyon. We left early the next morning for the four hour bus trip to Chivay where we would spend the night, stopping various places of non-interest on the way, including a supermarket and a terrible buffet restaurant for lunch. That evening we were railroaded to another restaurant with dancing and local music.
The next morning we got up at silly o'clock to go and see the Condors flying in the Colca Canyon. They mainly fly between 7am and 9am so we thought the early start was a good idea, until we were railroaded to more supermarkets and various local markets, and best of all, some "authentic locals" who were all sat around smoking until they saw the bus, and then suddenly decided what a great idea it would be to dance and sing!! We eventually got to the Condor viewing area about 8.30am and managed to see the Condors for about 15 minutes before they disappeared.
The Colca Canyon was stunning and watching the Condors was breathtaking but the tour as a whole was a total disappointment unfortunately. It was two days of buses, restaurants and supermarkets for only about 2 hours of what we wanted to do. Oh well.
Back in Arequipa we spent the day looking round the town, visiting a convent which was surprisingly interesting, and the Inca musem which was also brilliant. That evening we caught a bus at 7.30pm which would take us to Nasca overnight, arriving at 4am. We had paid for first class, and it was great. We got dinner and basically flat beds!! The journey seemed like to it took about 30 minutes to me as I slept right through it. I don't think Penny was so lucky!! (ha ha!!). I think she was awake for the whole 9 hours!!
On arrival in Nasca we crossed the road to our hostel and tour agent, to find they had no record of us!! Even though we wanted to go straight to the airport for our flight over the Nasca Lines, we were railroaded into a room (do you notice a theme here???). We got a couple of hours sleep and went and booked our flight (although we had already booked it several months earlier!!). Luckily it was all very smooth and we were at the airport around 8am for our flight in a four seat plane. Everything we had read and everybody we had spoken to had said they threw up on the flight so we were a little apprehensive, but I am pleased to say we were both OK, although a little queasy. The views were amazing and it was everything I had hoped it would be (as this was one of the things I was most looking forward too).
We spent the rest of the day relaxing, Penny had a swim, and we booked our bus for the next day to Lima. As buses go it was an OK trip, although very sad passing through the towns and villages around Ica which had been affected by the earthquake a couple of months ago.
We hadn't left ourselves much time in Lima because everyone had said it was rubbish. I'm pleased to say we really enjoyed ourselves and thought it was really nice! We booked ourselves on a city bus tour to try and make the most of it, and found ourselves with a private driver and tour guide as the bus was full!! We drove round the city for about 4-5 hours visiting all the main tourist sites and had a great time. There were some lovely parks and buildings and everyone was really friendly.
Later that night we caught our flight to Santiago (via Buenos Aires)......
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