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Published: January 25th 2006
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Ballesta Islands
Some Sea Lions on the Ballesta Islands Hello All! Been a week today since arrived here and done loads already.
From Lima last week, we travelled to Paracas on Wednesday morning, a costal resort. Took a couple of hours on the bus. Spectacular sights everywhere, passing through shanty towns, to even these straw huts in the desert, with no water and electricity that people live in. In Paracas we jumped on boats and went out to sea, to visit the Ballesta Islands. These Islands are described as the 'Poor man's Galapagos'. The Islands are infested with lots of sea birds, Penguins, Pelicans and Sea Lions ( which I think are gross ). The smell was horrendous, but was great to see, and was very hot. We then got back on the bus after some lunch, and made our way to the town of Pisco where we stayed the night. Pisco was a nice little place, and had more of a local theme to it compared to Lima. The hotel we stayed in was very nice, and in the evening we had a meal, and a some local musicians turned up to play some traditional music, which was cool.
We left the hotel in Pisco early on
Sand Boarding in Huachachina
This is one of the crazy sand buggies driving across some flat desert Thursday morning, and drove to Huachachina, which is desert land. We were taken out in to the desert on these big sand buggies. It was crazy driving across the desert, and the drivers pulled off loads of big stunts over huge sand dunes, it was like being at Alton Towers! We stopped in the desert for a couple of hours to do Sandboarding down the big dunes, which was great fun!!! It was absolutely baking hot in the desert! All of this was also being filmed by a tv crew, this added to the buggie drivers pulling off loads of stunts whilst driving, all to be filmed. It was an absolutely brilliant experience, would def recommend it! We had lunch, and then again set off on the truck, this time on to Nasca.
Nasca is pretty much out in the middle of a desert, and home to the famous Nasca Lines. We arrived there, and pitched up at a campsite, and put up the tents to camp for the night. Then, me and some other people were the first to go to Nasca Airport to take a flight over the lines. The plane held 5 people, and the pilot
Nazca Lines
See if you can spot the Spaceman in the rocks...???!!! gave a detailed explanation of the lines as we saw them. They were harder to see than I thought they would be, a bit smaller to all the pictures of them that you see. However it was fascinating, even if a bit scary being thrown around in the sky in a tiny plane, especially with a sandstorm nearby! Across the desert you can see mini tornados everywhere, they actually clean the desert floor and help preserve the lines, they were cool. Once safely landed, I went off with our tour leader to buy some food in the local markets. Then we cooked dinner, and slept in the tents that night. This was a truly brilliant day.
Friday morning and up for another early start. We packed up and drove in to the town of Nasca, where we were given demonstrations of how Incan Pottery was made. Then virtually next door, we were taken to see how Gold was mined, and the processes used to extract it from stone. Was interseting. Then we drove to Chauchilla Cemetry, where there are preserved open tombs of important people dating back thousands of years. We had a look around and then drove South
The Main Square, Arequipa
This is the main square in Arequipa, ´The White City´ to Puerto Inka, which took 4 hours. This is a very secluded beach, in the middle of pretty much nowhere. We pitched up the tents on the beach itself, and just spent the day having a swim in the sea, and generally relaxing. We stayed there for Friday and Saturday. On Saturday I went for hike around the area, where there is actually some Incan ruins, and an Incan Trail. Its where they would come to fish, and then take all of there catch all the way to Cusco, which is amazing. They had built stone steps in to the hills to make it easier to get through the surrounding cliffs, unreal. Some wildlife here, looked to be Otters or maybe Seals swimming out to sea. Puerto Inka is a place where perhaps wealthy Peruvians would go to. An apartment for the night can cost 175 sols, hench there was hardly anybody there but us.
Sunday morning we again packed up after 3 nights successive camping, and made our way to Arequipa, which is a 6/7 hour drive. There was some spectacular scenary along the way, vast desert, to huge mountain ranges, and sporadic rice fields. We passed a
Santa Catalina, Arequipa
The Convent, like a small town inside the centre of Arequipa. A beautiful place. spot of desert land, where they actually filmed the new Planet Of The Apes. We arrived in Arequipa late afternoon, and checked in to the hotel. Arequipa is supposedly Peru's Second CIty behind Lima, and its population is 1 million. Our tour leader took us for a walk around the City, and immediately I was impressed. Its a beautiful, very Spanish esque kind of place, a big square in the centre ( which has been the same in most towns ), and lots of cobbled style streets. The buildings are beautiful, all made from volcanic stone called Sillar. The cathedral is in the main square. In 2001 there was a big earthquake, which knocked a spiral off the cathedral ( now replaced ). Arequipa is also home to 'El Misti' one of the regions largets volcano's at 5800 feet. Its usually visible, but has had too much mist around it to be able to see it today.
Today ( Monday ), we had a free day to explore Arequipa. Went to the Monestary, Santa Catalina, which is an incredible place, a City amongst a City. It was home to nuns, most famously Sor Ana, and was a beautiful place, coloured in red and blue, and drenched in sun. This morning it was actually 37 degrees here, but rapidly dropped in the afternoon. We then had lunch, and went to a musuem, home of an Incan girl called Juanita, who was sacrificed and preserved in ice in the mountains for thousands of years. This was also very interesting. the local speciality which is sold pretty much everywhere here is Guinea Pig! Disgusting, a few people eat it last night, and they said it looks like its just been run over! I went for an Italian instead, in a really nice restaurant! Just had a quick look around the shops etc before I came to write this. Arequipa is a really nice place, very clean and has a very Spanish sort of feel to it, much different to Lima, and a lot diffferent to what I expected.
Tommorrow we leave early ( 6am ), to head out to Colca Canyon, the biggest Canyon in the world. There they have Condors that glide in the sky, so should be a good one. ANd then on to the ancient City of Cusco. At the weekend we start the Inca trail itself!
I´ve taken millions of amazing pictures already, got to put them on to disk, so I'll put some on here as soon as I can....
Take Care and I'll update again soon
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JD
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Guinea Pig
Do they make Guinea Pig flavour crisps as well? It would make a good present for someone! Thanks for update. cheers JD