Peru: Lima-Nasca-Arequipa

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Our two days in Lima were spent touring the museums and shopping and a few of us had to chase down our Paraguayan visas. Jodie and I were denied entry to the Spanish Inquisition Museum twice and we have no idea why. The museum is supposed to be lame with only a few torture devices and bad dummies but still, I wanted to see it! We visited the San Francisco Monestery and saw the catacombs with hundreds of bones under the church.

Then we were off to Huacachina where everyone else went sand boarding but I stayed on the bus because of a stomach bug. They all had a great time and I was disappointed to miss out but I can always do it in Africa.

We spent the night in Nasca and each of us flew over the Nasca lines. It was amazing seeing the line scetchings from the air. Definitely a highlight of the trip so far. After everyone finished their flights, we drove to Puerto Inca where we stayed the night on the beach. A few of us upgraded to cabin accommodation while the others camped on the beach. So I still haven´t gone camping!

After seven hours of bus travel we finally arrived in Arequipa which sits 2,400m above sea level. Last night I tried Ostrich and Alpaca. Ostrich steak is really good and I´d definitely order it again but Alpaca was gross.

Today Jodie and I went to the Santa Catalina Monestery which was great. We followed that with a visit to Juanita, the frozen mummy. In our small tour group was ´Dave the Gay Farmer´ from Big Brother. I asked him at the end of the tour whether he was, in fact, Dave the Gay Farmer from BB and he said he was. He said he was in Peru as it was his last prize from BB. Good to see the prizes didn´t come with an expiration date. He was with another gay man who from their behaviour appeared to be his boyfriend. His boyfriend looked straight out of Coolangata Gold circa 1987. Seriously bad streaks with a blonde bobbed hairdo. Knowing he´s a National Party voter despite the fact they´re a conservative party who don´t give a shit about gay rights, I asked Farmer Dave how he felt about the recent election results. He stuttered a bit and then said he was no longer connected to the National Party. I said it was strange a gay man would vote for the Nationals to begin with and he said he did because he wanted to help change the party. Ok, Farmer Dave. We had our photo taken with him to show the other Aussies on our tour we bumped into him. There´s a good possibly we may bump into him again in Cusco as he´s doing the Inca Trail a day before us. He´ll probably run for the hills if he sees us again.

Tomorrow we head for Chuvay and then it´s up to Cusco.

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