PERU:Lima>Ballestas>Pisco>Huacachina>Nazca>P.Inca

  Nazca, Peru
Friday, June 30, 2006

 Howdee-do. I'm still alive and kicking. ( zzz but 4 whole weeks of banter and events so this will be a painfully huge one)

Lima 2nd June...hmmm yes errrrr well.... The hostal was more than adequate but dodgy.... pretty much bummed around the rest of that afternoon and made the silly mistake of finding bearings in the evening time.. the streets were crammed and I felt claustro for the first time and insecure with people farting about in every direction.. finding blessed compatible ATMs was such a mission.. bumped into this overly keen peruvian guy, endeavouring to practice his english and chat away.. demanded my email addy for correspondence and that and chatted away for aaaaages about the upcoming presidentail elections 2days away on the Sunday. Afterwards I tok refuge in the hostal in the upstairs sociabe cafeteria which was nice and went to bed v early.... these 2 french canadian girls stumbled in late and were suffering the aftermath of the inca trail eg altitude sickness..not promising for me considering how susceptible to illness I am usually....

Sat: got a hell of a lot done in the city.... didn't anticipate a lot being shut though (due to the security and riot police being overprotective re: elections in the capital). All the same, I visited the fantasic Convento San Francisco: a wonderful example of art, lfestyle and living quarters of the franciscan monks in the order... great huge pictures of the last supper...... really exquisite arabic (spanish moorish) influence of the building etc.... monks still live there so we saw a library, dining room and choir stalls etc....Then, we had a guided tour of the underground catacumbs where 25,000 peruvians were buried....whose dusty but complete skulls and detatched bones lie neatly arranged in these deep waterless wells.... architects are carrying out work there you see. this smelt a bit but was cool.

Then I got as far as the huge main square "Plaza Mayor" which has a posh cafe zone to one side, imposing pretty cathedral on another, an arcade with horsee and traps waiting outside on the 3rd, and finally the well guarded governmental palace (10 downing street equivalent) on the fourth - here the change of the guard can be seen daily at mid-day.... tried out authentic peruvain cuisine for lunch and in the aftee, took this bus ride up to Cerro San Cristobal from where one can observe the entire city form high up..wonderful panaoramas of the resiential quarters, main high-rise buildings, huge sandstone mountain dune things around which the city is buillt...also the motorways with much pollution and dust!!!! .........
Um..... what more.. oh yes, saw a statue of the liberator of peru - San Martin.

In the eve, was pretty tired so again decided to dine chez the hostal caf... met these crazy colombians living off vending self-made arts and crafts on a daily basis....run away rebels they say...the girl was like hyper, and very drama queen like with up and down emotions... she had run in with UK people in dormitory the previous night so wasnt best pleased. anyway, she was overfriendly and we played cards and that in the dorm etc...

Sun: checked out of hotel and headed to my long anticipated 3star hotel where I would meet my next Tucan Travel tour group (same as Mexico adventures)..... yay! Had a cold and was pleased to see hot water again with private room comfort with tv etc....the city wasn't that busy with people and traffic due to election polls... evry1 seemed so not bothered especially since voting is compulsory in Peru. Puts 30%odd turn out for Britain on average to shame.....there were however riot police in the main square with a van full of explosives?!!?!? The day saw a brief orientation tour from the New Zealand female tour guide, a pre-departure meeting, dinner and early sleep due to 6:45am departure for Paracas and Pisco the following day......

A little on my tour people before I move on to the itinerary:This time round, the leader seems to be sound and emotiaonally stable ..early 30s... a married kiwi girl with our driver as her canadian hubby...humour fine and attitude not german and military like.. actually feel am on holiday....co-travellers: mixture of old, mid-aged, young, male, female, married, single....interesting...boring.... from England, Ire, Scot, Wales.. Oz, Nz, South Africa....Holland family...Polish chap & Canadian lass... and me from Jersey. 26 in total so double last time which nice... the bus is much more deluxe..mercedes benz model..bright yellow again with same factilities but huge.... called Peggy. like a zoo van or something lol..am sharing a room with a 19yr old UK gap year student.... nice chap... there are 2 sets of very nice Irish sisters. phwoah.

Mon 5TH (Day 1 of tour): woke up at 5:30 am for breakfast before 4 hour drive to PARACAS..small poor village from where we would take our boat out to the Ballestas Islands to see Sea Lions, Pelicans, small Penguins amongst other fishies...also, amazing rock formations and arches carved by nature - tide and wind movements and tons of poo droppings layer upon layer....
Also, on the sandy headland is a still intact Candelabra (etched sculpture) in the side of 1 sandy hill.....was thought to have been tehre since pre-inca times and remains to this day due to no rain or wind accessing the isolated area... interesting theories proposing its significance..... atfer that we had a picnic lunch and continued onto to Pisco, region where the famous PISCO SOUR drink comes from - clear brandy, with egg white and lemon cordials etc....margarita like....yummy..... town is small with nothing to offer in terms of tourism. just a stop-off point for another early rise at dawn tomorrow..... ate with tour buds in the evening and chilled on the terrace playing cards etc. nice bonding as was 1 english lads 19th birthday that evening....were treated to a funky peruvian trio band who sang especially for us beside our table...

Tues 6th: once again, a crazy o'clock rise "start as we mean to go on" policy.. we had a 2 hour drive to HUACACHINA: a natural oasis in middle of these smooth sand dunes...kind of a cross ebtween the St.Ouenais dunes back home and the Sahara I believe! HIGHLIGHT SO FAR - we went sand buggying in groups of 8. We revved through the windy and bumpy dunes up and down, around humps and scaled vertical drops etc at high velocity. very exhilerating.... felt like a simulator... took videos from the front seats with all the girlies screaming away with delight.....we were drivena round by this cool local in this beast of a machine with a protective cage around.

we took regular stops to take in the surroundings and pose etc.... alos, we had 3 goes at sand-boarding down steep hills... standing and lyign on stomach. also fun but got covered in sand when attempted to zoom down on foot... nevertheless, fun was had by all indeed.....

The next event was a 2hr drive to NAZCA, famous for its stretches and stretches of etched objects, animals and human figures in the sandy earth eg astronaught, hands, tree, spider, condor.... These are in existance since 300BC roughly and are still intact..again, local climate has not affected them in the slightest. Though there are many theories re: their origina and purpose, nothing can be confirmed.. some believe they serve as communication with space, others have more logistic and mathematical answers...hmmm.. is UNESCO site so pretty damn important. We stopped in the middle of the PanAmerican Highway just to climb a watchtower form which one can clearly observe 2 of the carvings closeup to get an idea. very vivid. Following on, we had another gourmet picnic lunch in an offroad site before booking midafternoon flights over the lines with a guided explanation..... veeeeeeery bumpy and hard ot take photos in a plane fitting 6 people, but awesome all the same, even if just to see the lines at a glance and take amazing pics of the mountain ridges, valleys and surrounding community. Some of the lines are 100s of metres long and wide..others v small in comparison.

We boarded the bus again for another drive to our hotel for the night... well, how cool... some converted hacienda building with rooms forming the perimeter of courtyards and then a pool, tennis court, ping pong, open bar, and free roaming LLAMAS in the gardens lol..apparently this particular hotel will soon be out of the tour company's price range so we were loving that... funny as.... had the whole of the afternoon pretty much to chill since we had done all the previous info by 3pm!!!! managed to get myself stung by a bee on the eyebrow so my eye was swollen lol. We felt treated like royalty in this dining room parlour place.... 1 huge long table.... then we adjourned to the smoking room and that to socialise....

Wed 7th: we were jubilant at the news of being treated to a 7am rise today..we got in 3 different sites starting with a local ceramics workshop in Nazca downtown...we were treated to a thoroughly hilarious explanation by the owner in spanglish with good humour.. top class entertainment... he proceeded to break into japanese and dutch and french etc with cheeky gestures towards the females etc. mad! This was proceeded by a mini tour of a gold mining museum down the road..... here men literally spend all day rocking to and fro on this huge rock placed in this bowl type thing with the minerals to be worked on. all for a few dollars a week. Afterwards, we drove a few hours further to the Chauchilla cementary in the middle of nowhere. This place in the open plains houses dug up mummies with a bit of dried flesh and hair still preserved ..have been on show in various tombs since the 1920s. was my first encounter with mummies, but they were certainly not the typical wrapped up type.. clothing on and bones sticking out etc.

Then was another joyful medium-distance drive to PUERTO INCA at the foot of mountains and on the coast. En route, we stopped to admire the small ancient road leading to Cuzco. In P.I, we set up camp for the night and immediately explored the nearby ruins remaining in this strategically created port base for the Incas. we walked around and got as far as this ledge which served asa sacrifical table. fab views of jutting out rocks in the stormy seas.. certainly no tropical waters here. For the rest of the afternoon, a few beers were consumed and we chatted ot this crazy talkative parrot.....our rooms were all scattered around the site....cabin like but very nice. was a bit chilly so jumpers were put on... we did plan to have a beach bonfire that evening but the locals denied us purchasing some wood on the roadside coz some trucks were coming to pick up in bulk that afternoon. shame... But instead we had this marvellous buffet spread in our own private room inside..mixutre of hot and cold, seafood and meats with salads.. yum!!! free pisco sours were had and kareoke was brought out by popular demand after desert.. this pursued for a coupel of hours until we thought it best to retire to our quarters in prep for yet another 4 or 5 hour drive the following day...
PS so far so good with tour mates.. no dramas, run ins or misunderstandings..... haha....