The flight over the Nazca lines yesterday was great. The plane held 6 people and veered from left to right to ensure that everyone in the plane got a chance to see each of the lines. The pilot also spoke a little English so he was able to point out to us what we should be seeing. At first they were hard to spot, but it got easier once you knew what you were looking for. Some are absolutely enormous! I tried to take pictures of them all, but I'm not sure any have come out too well through the plane [View Full Entry]

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The newbies are all very nice - there is one couple Craig (Kiwi) and Geraldine (French), two girls travelling together Georgie and Ana (both English), and three other single girls - Claudia (German), Jenny (Scottish) and Emma (English). Yesterday we left Lima and took a 5-hour bus to Paracas. The bus journeys are pretty boring now as the scenery is just desert for as far as the eye can see. We arrived in time for dinner, but nothing else before bed. Today has been busy to make up for it though! We were up early for a trip to the Ballesta [View Full Entry]

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We have arrived in the capital city of Peru! We are staying in the suburb of Barranco, a relatively clean and quiet area of the city, but there is not much to see here. We have strolled around the area (which didn't take long!), seen a viewpoint and wandered into a re-enactment taking place as some sort of celebration of Barranco... We've also taken a bus into Miraflores - another Lima district north of Barranco and closer to central Lima. It's nice, and more lively than Barranco, but very commercial and there is not much more than a main plaza and [View Full Entry]

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Huanchaco is a sleepy beach town, not as nice as Mancora, colder water, and fewer waves. Still, it is a great jumping-off point for a couple of pre-Incan sites nearby. The night bus to Trujillo from where we got a taxi to Huanchaco was terrible - I couldn't get comfortable at all and I'm consequently now suffering from a very bad back. Nevertheless, I couldn't miss the opportunity to see the sites, so today I've been to Chan Chan and Huacas del Sol and de la Luna. Chan Chan is a pre-Incan ruined city, built by the Chimu people. We didn't [View Full Entry]

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The trip to Peru yesterday was long and boring, although the border crossing wasn't as bad as we had been anticipating. There was a 5-hour bus to the Ecuadorian Immingration office, then a short bus to the border, which exists in the middle of the border town Huaquillas. We opted to get a private mini-van for $4 each to get us to Mancora in 2.5 hours - half the time that the other option of 3 buses would have taken! The Peruvian landscape is very different to Ecuador - whilst Ecuador is green and full of life, Peru is dry and [View Full Entry]

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Baños is a cool little town where we went white water rafting on Grade III-IV rapids (very fun) and went in the hot springs in the evening to relax. There were 3 pools - cold, hot, and hotter. The hot pool was like a hot bath, and the hotter pool was really hot. Too hot to sit in for more than a few mins! But for only $2, a fun experience. We went out for a drink and dance with Fernando that night as well, but just as Fernando started teaching us how to Salsa, the music in the club changed [View Full Entry]

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Wow... The Amazon was great - we went on some long hikes through the jungle in very humid conditions - hard work, but interesting and the views were well worth it. To get there we took a 3 hour bus journey to a town called Tena, from where we jumped onto a pick-up truck (literally - 5 of us rode in the back!) for 30 mins to where our canoe was. The canoe ride was very relaxing - all in one big long canoe 2-people wide for about 30 mins. We had to walk for about an hour from where the [View Full Entry]

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We are currently a group of 8 - Kirsty & Paula from Australia, Ollie & Christie from Bristol & Essex, Nell & Neil from Galway and Esther from Norfolk. Esther is going as far as Lima, then leaving the trip, and 7 others will also join the group there. Nel & Neil are going as far as La Paz, but the rest of us are doing the full 83 days. Seems like a good group - we´re all in our 20s and the Peruvian tour leader, Fernando, is young and seems fun. Fernando is also only going as far as La [View Full Entry]

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Well, my first two days in Quito have gone well. The altitude definitely affected me to start with - the air is noticeably thinner and it's easy to do too much and feel over tired. I'm stying in the New Town - the Mariscal district, which is a ghost town before 9, bustling during the day, and comes to life at night. It means it's quite noisy well into the night, but I am managing to sleep ok. Today I hooked up with a girl in my dorm and went sightseeing around the Old Town (which has most of the historical [View Full Entry]

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