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I´ve changed the spelling of my name
We were so excited to be met at the airport by a driver with a sign saying my name...he nearly got it right Since my last blog we´ve moved on to Peru and have been here for about two weeks. First stop was the capital, Lima, which is on the coast of Peru. We had two days there to relax and meet up with Susie´s brother, Andrew. He was a day late, unfortunately, as his flight from Perth was delayed, because some goose decided to put an oxygen tank in their check-in luggage. From Lima we´ve been to Huacachina, Nazca, Arequipa and are currently in Cusco (we´ve just met up with Miss Emily Evans, which could spell trouble).
Highlights and lowlights of Peru thus far are as follows:
Highlights:
- A few nights in Huacachina - which is an oasis town of only 200 people, set on a lagoon right in the middle on massive sand dunes - despite the extreme heat and sweatiness. Day 1 in Huacachina was spent dunebuggying and sandboarding. We had a great afternoon driving at breakneck speeds up and down the gigantic dunes (even I did a bit of girly squealing!) and sandboarding down five slopes(predominantly lying down, because after seeing how uncoordinated our whole group was at attempting to stand up, our instructor didn´t
seem too keen on us attempting this again). Our guide spoke very little English and had to gesture most instructions. His favourite thing to say, however, as we lay down on the board in preparation, was ´open your legs.´ We ended the day by watching a beautiful sunset over the dunes. The absolute highlight of the day (not that i´m supposed to mention this) was a moment of weakness/embarrassment for Tucky. She had just laid on her board and the instructor had bent over to give her a push down the hill, when all of sudden she lost control and farted right in his face. She was too busy speeding off down the dune to apologise, leaving me in hysterics and our guide somewhat bewildered at the top of the hill.
- The other highlight was another winery tour (in Ica which is the next town to Huacachina), which turned out to be pisco central. Pisco is a spirit, about 40-45% alcohol, and the Peruvian national drink. We had much fun getting to know our three guides. The first was named Jesus, enough said. The second demonstrated the traditional method for making pisco (which is no longer used, except
Miraflores
We stayed in the swanky area of Lima during festivals) and taught us some classic dance moves, and the third showed us through his intimate and very traditional winery, which involved testings in a room jam-packed with every kind of painting, statue, sword, artefact, etc. known to man. One of his friends was quite taken by St. Christopher and encouraged us to take photos in front of every statue he could find.
- Next we moved on to Nazca, which is a very sleepy little town, with nothing to do except fly over the amazing Nazca lines - hundreds of mysterious, ancient lines in the ground made by the Peruvians. They are imperceptible when seen from the ground, but when viewed from the air, you can see that they are actually giant shapes and pictures. Among others we saw: an astronaut, parrot, dog, monkey, hummingbird, tree and hands. We weren´t nervous at all getting into a tiny four seating plane, thanks to our comforting driver named Angel, with his computer voice: ¨My friends, the first picture is marked by a reference point, my friends, the reference point is three small mountains on the right hand side, my friends. Look to the left of the first small mountain,
my friends, I will put the picture in the centre of your window. RELAX! RELAX! My friends...¨
- After Nazca we got a bus to Arequipa, Peru´s second largest city. It is a beautiful city, surrounded by massive mountains. In Arequipa we wandered around and did various cultural things, such as a visit to a couple of museums - The Santa Catalina monastery, which is like a city within a city, where the nuns of Arequipa have lived for hundreds of years, and an Inca museum where we learnt about the Inca empire and saw lots of artefacts. We also saw a recently discovered and very well-preserved child sacrifice (children were offered as a sacrifice to appease the mountain gods), named Sarita. Juanita, the star attraction, was absent - she is taken away for maintenance/preservation for four months of the year between January and April - but we were able to go back and see her a few days later.
- From Arequipa we went on a three day tour, which involved two days trekking and one day sight-seeing in the Colca Canyon. The canyon is set amidst huge volcanoes, the highest is Coropuna which reaches 6613 metres,
and is a beautiful sport for walking, at least downhill. While the slope down was very steep and slippery (and very tough on your knees), it sure beat the uphill sections - one part involved ascending 1200 metres on a path about 5 km long. It was pretty hard work, but good practice for the Inca trail which we´re doing next. The uphill was certainly made bearable by the stunning scenery, large amounts of food and the chance to walk through and stay in tiny and remote villages. The villages in teh canyon have only gained access to electricity and mobile phone reception in the last couple of years. They still managed to somehow offer the best showers we´re had in the whole of South America. These already very small villages are declining in population, as most of the youth head off to cities like Arequipa to get an education or find work, leaving an aging population behind (although the oldies still managed to put us to shame, charging up the hill past us). On our first day in the canyon, we also got to stop at a look-out point called the Cruz del Condor, where families of condors glide
around every morning. This was pretty amazing, and was made even better by a performance by the locals with lots of trumpets and dancing. One dance they did involved crowding round some sort of fruit tree, then the women picked the fruit and pretended to eat in, before falling over in a circle and having some sort of fit (or at least that´s what it looked like).
- Other highlights have, of course, been trying some local delicacies, such as guinea pig, alpaca and ceviche (a sort of raw fish, done in lemon juice - very nice!).
Lowlights:
- One point of the bus trip from Nazca to Arequipa. It was a nice scenic drive along the coast with little towns along the way. One stretch of road, though, was pretty uncomfortable - very windy, lots of blind turns, small guard rails and a sheer drop of about 100 metres off a cliff into massive waves. At one point an oncoming truck came speeding around the corner on our side of the road, pushing us off the road. Fortunately at this point there happened to be a small gravel area for us to pull into. Otherwise
it might have been a little unpleasant. It did provide quite an amusing moment though - there were four German girls sitting up the front of the bus who saw this oncoming truck. Three of them breathed in very deeply, but the other one was absolutely terrified and called out, ´mummy!!!!!!´
- Picking up some sort of nasty gastro bug in Arequipa. Unfortunately for Andrew and Tucky, they managed to get sick on the day when the water was out and the hostel was down to one toilet. I, on the other hand, decided to have a delayed onset and get sick just in time for the trek. Two days of stomach cramps and dizzy spells was a bit unpleasant, but at least I managed to make it to the top of the canyon and safely into the hostel before the overwhelming desire to go to the toilet kicked in. Poor Tucky having to share a room with me! Not that you wanted to know any of that.
On that note, that´s it from me, next blog (by the way I´m going on strike if no one comments on this one) shall be about the Inca trail.
Hope you´re all well.
Love,
B
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Benny
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Don't go on strike Weena, the blogs are a constant source of amusement. Oh and Susie spends minimal time near a pc, and even less uploading photos, (big hint to the pickle) so yeah. Have they got flannies in Sth America?