El Parral Hotel Ica

Twenty minutes of climbing up scolding hot sand dunes for a ten second ride down seems crazy right? Until you experience the thrill of strapping an old snowboard to your hiking boots, and flying down three hundred vertical feet of untouched sand... Without exaggeration, Squaws Siberia Bowl of sand, right outside our hostel door. <br><br>Huacachina is a tiny town outside the bustling ...

... we kregen de kans om te proeven. We hebben er zowel wijn, verschillende soorten pisco en zelf gemaakte chocoladesnoepjes geproefd. Aangezien de wijn er een mengeling is van pisco en druivensap, kwamen we niet in de verleiding om tot aankoop over te gaan. De pisco kon ons ook niet bekoren, dus hebben we het maar gehouden bij een zakje lekkere chocoladesnoepjes... <br><br>Later op de dag zijn we met een dune-buggy de woestijn ingetrokken om te gaan ...

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Al promised me a day or relaxing, after our crazy night bus and day of fun in Nazca... and it lasted an hour or 2... we had a bit of a lie in, after Al got me a bit tipsy on one drink... buit this drink was something special... a cocktail called Bomba Cereza.. it was rum, coke and cherry grenadine, over ice...served in a wine glass (but the wine glass happened to be a pint sized wine glass!) - after our drink, we were walked by the laguna looking for somewhere for dinner when I heard ...

... legs you really get some speed up. <br>Off to watch the sunset, but by then it is so cold we dont wait for it to completly disappear. Some more roller coaster fun and its back to the hotel, mad.<br>Next day we are up at 5.30 for our trip to the Ballestas islands. Do the rounds picking people up then its about 1 hour to Paracas.The hotel we were going to stay at looks ok though I suspect it doesnt have a pool or parrots ...

... was like a rollercoater on sand dunes. Everybody was screaming. All you could see were sand dunes! Then the driver stopped and we all got out to take pictures. He then pulled out the sand boards, and some people (including me) went down on their bellies, but others (including Will) went down like they were snowboarding. We did it a bunch of times. I kind of flipped ...

... the pisco in Peru. This tour was neat because they have tons of huge equipment and we got to see how it's made on a large scale. After a tasting that included both the one dry wine of the day and a sweet, light, breakfast wine, we headed to bodega Lazo.<br><br>Lazo was probably my favorite. It's the smallest, and is a very traditional, artisanal vineyard. You walk in, and it seems like a museum. It's got all sorts of artwork, statues, tapestries, and animals on the walls. The ...

... a bit at Desert Nights, a hostel across the other side of the oasis where we use the internet all the time, after we also had breakfast there. Their food is lovely and really good value. then attempted some sunbathing but it was too chilly and we decided to go and rent boards and do a bit of sand-boarding. Sand-boarding without the aid of a dune-buggy to take you to all of the dunes is bloody hard work. You spend ages climbing to the top of a dune, go down it ...

... the world. Their flippers can't really grip anything, so they just wriggle about until they get somewhere. Later, we see a fur seal (I think. The loud speaker wasn't always that easy to hear) only the second our guide has seen in ten years of leading these tours. Pretty cool, but soon, we are turning around and heading back to shore for breakfast. The tour will return to Huacacina, but I am going north of the capital for my last three days in country. Stay tuned.

... hang out and you can hire sandboards and take dune buggie tours etc. We decided to do a boat tour to the "poor man s Galapagos islands". I had a little incident with the pizza we had had the night before and wasnt really able to enjoy the boat ride too much, but Jeff said it was great... There was see lions, little penguins and a million different kinds of birds - see for yourselves<br><br>PS: We didnt go back to London as the map is showing in case you re wondering...<br>