End of the road

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With the end of my trip looming large, I wasn't sure whether I was ready to come home. Although I felt content with how much of the continent I'd been able to cover, there was still a heck of a lot left in South America to be explored. Having spent less than I'd budgeted for, I could have carried on for a while longer. But in truth I was in need of a rest from the exertions of travelling, and so I wasn't too unhappy that the finishing line was coming into sight.

With my flight scheduled to leave from Lima on 18th April, I had just over a week left to see some more of southern Peru. The city of Arequipa was a perfect place to spend a few days. Known as the 'White City' thanks to its many white buildings constructed from volcanic stone, Arequipa is surrounded by towering volcanoes and has a pleasantly warm climate. It is also prime earthquake territory, but I am pleased to report that the place remained intact during my stay.

About 100 miles north of Arequipa is the Colca Canyon, and I booked myself on a 2 day tour to check it out. The Colca Canyon is actually the deepest canyon in the world (twice as big as the Grand Canyon), not that I saw much of it. To say that the tour was touristy would be a massive understatement. Essentially I was stuck on a tour bus for 2 days with the occasional stop for a photo or a drop off by some market stalls, which is sort of like being fed to the sharks. I've got to give them credit though, the Peruvians are experts at persuading tourists to part from their cash. Usually it involves kind looking women dressing up their kids and babies into cute costumes and smiling persistently until you cave in.

Frankly, I am struggling to think of anything of note I saw during the first day of the tour. It really was so slow going and overwhelmingly touristy. I should have absolutely loathed it, but I am almost ashamed to say that I quite enjoyed it, perhaps because at this stage of my trip I wasn't looking for anything too energetic. The day did at least end on a fun note, with our group attending a dinner dance with all the other tour groups. We all had to join in the dancing, which at one stage bordered on the perverse when the professional dancers began whipping some of the girls. One poor girl took hours to recover. The dancing had livened us all up and I went on to a discoteca with 2 girls from Lima, Jackie and Carlota. I was amazed to find that there was a discoteca in the small town of Chivay, and it wasn't bad actually, despite having to dance to some ghastly Peruvian rock songs. We left the club about 2am in spite of the fact that we had to get up at 5. I must have looked pretty dodgy in the morning because the guide mentioned to me that I was making him nervous with my stern facial expressions. Clearly he wasn't used to members of his tour groups exploring the Chivay nightlife.

There was a good reason why we had to get up at the insane hour of 5am - we had to make it to the canyon in time to go spotting Andean condors, which only tend to fly in the early mornings so that they can catch the wind. Well, if truth be told we could have left quite a bit later than we did, but we had to fit in a few more pointless touristy stops. The icing on the cake was the stop we made at 6.30am to see some poor children dancing in a village square to deafeningly loud music. If my expression had remained grim, then the expressions on the kids' faces were downright miserable. And I didn't blame them.

When we finally made it to the lookout point, known as the Cruz del Condor, the conditions were near perfect for condor viewing. I was lucky enough to see lots of them. With their giant wingspans giving them an awesome presence, the condors are captivating birds to watch. We were given about an hour to spend there - I would have preferred longer, but this wasn't possible as we had more market stalls to visit. Then it was the long journey back to Arequipa, where we arrived late afternoon. After a couple of hours' rest I went out again with Jackie and Carlota and their friend Javier, who lives in Arequipa.

I spent 1 more day in Arequipa, during which I bumped into 2 of my buddies from carnival time in Rio, Michelle and Paul, in a café overlooking the Plaza de Armas. That was a nice surprise, and after having lunch with them I took a peek at an ice mummy in the Museum of Andean Sanctuaries. The ice mummy on display was not the famous Juanita, who was rudely absent, but it was fascinating nonetheless. Numerous mummies of young children, mostly girls, have been discovered on Arequipa's volcanoes - the children are said to have been sacrificed by Incas as an offering to the gods. The mummies are over 500 years old and are kept frozen.

That night I hopped on a bus to Nazca, a town further up the coast. My reason for stopping off here was to see the famous Nazca lines. These are gigantic lines which are thought to have been etched into the desert between 200 BC and 700 AD. The lines are shaped in the form of creatures, including a monkey, spider, and hummingbird. Quite why these lines were created is open to debate, although the theory involving aliens and UFOs seems a bit far-fetched. Far more realistic is the theory that the Nazca people wanted to make some sort of offering to the gods and that the reason that they made the lines so big was so that the gods would be able to see them. What makes the lines impressive is not just their size, but the fact that when creating them the Nazca people could not have known what they would look like from the air.

Numerous companies in Nazca offer flights over the lines. I had arrived in Nazca at 5am, and of course nothing was open at that time. It had seemed that I had little choice but to sit at the tiny bus station for a few hours, but then a tout came along and tried to get me to sign up for his company. He offered me a flight at 7.30am as well as the comfort of sitting in his agency using the internet until the departure. Although the golden rule is not to book anything at the bus station, the temptation was too great and I signed up. There were to be 2 other passengers in the tiny plane, and 1 of them managed to delay the flight by sleeping in. When we finally made it to the plane for take off, we were introduced to our pilot, who was furious at our lateness. I was bundled into my seat next to the pilot, given the quickest safety briefing ever told, before the pilot sped down the runway and up we went. The flight itself did feel a touch rushed too, but I wasn't going to have a moan at the clearly irate pilot. Seeing the lines was worth the effort, a unique experience.

It was still fairly early in the day when I arrived back in Nazca and, with there being apparently nothing to do in the town, I decided to take a bus further north to the city of Ica. The journey took me through many more miles of seemingly endless desert. I did not spend much time in Ica itself, but rather spent a very relaxing couple of hours at the desert oasis of Huacachina, characterised by its huge, curvaceous sand dunes surrounding a green lagoon. After this there was still time for me to catch another bus to take me up to Lima, where I arrived late evening.

My time in Lima was spent mostly with Nancy, the girl I met last time I was in town. For my final day Nancy suggested that we take a trip to the hillside town of Matucana. Getting to Matucana proved to be a fair effort. Firstly we had to take a couple of local buses and then stand on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere trying to flag down a big bus. I was beginning to get a bit nervous at this point, as my flight to New York was to leave that night. Much to my relief, we didn't have to wait too long for a bus to take us on to Matucuna. All in all it took us about 4 hours to get there but it was worth it, for this was a very remote spot in the Peruvian hills and a far cry from the hustle and bustle of Lima. Getting off the beaten track is not that easy in Peru, but I'd certainly managed it here. There was nothing to do in Matucana but it didn't matter, we enjoyed just strolling around the town and countryside. Thankfully getting out of the place was easier than I had feared, and Nancy saw me off at the airport with time to spare.

And so that was it, my time in South America was suddenly at an end. New York was a convenient stop-over on the way back home, and I spent a fun few days there. I stayed on the upper west side of Manhattan and managed to see and do a lot, including the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, a Yankees' baseball game, and Central Park on a gloriously sunny day.

Well, thanks to those of you who have been following my blog over the last 6 months. It has been a rewarding adventure and I hope I've managed to do South America justice by conveying what a fantastic continent it is for travelling around. It's been a privilege to visit such wonderful countries and to meet so many great people along the way. I will miss it. Sooner or later, though, I'll be back.

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