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January 31st 2007
Published: February 12th 2007
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Aguas CalientasAguas CalientasAguas Calientas

Pisco sours at the end of the trek.
While the rest of the group headed back to Cusco, Renee and i hung around in Aguas Calientas for a night. During the high season this would be a pumping little town full of trekkers trading war stories. It was fairly quiet while we were there which was ok. Ended up getting 'piscoed' on the peruvian drink pisco sours. Cruised around some local markets the next morning before catching the Vistadome train back to Cusco.

The next day we went whitewater rafting on some Class III rapids. I'd always thought it would be boring, and while the heart rate never really got up i can see how on some tougher rapids there would be a real buzz. Going to look into that when i get to the U.S.

Met up with the Aussie lads from the trek and had a night on the cuba libres in Cusco. They give them away and i've never been one to say no, so needless to say the head was beating hard the next day, which happened to be a day of travel.

Caught a bus across to Nazca, which takes about 13 hours. Decided to splash out an extra 25 soles (6 euro) and go first class. Massive leather recliners, tv, food service etc. No roughing it for us.

Jumped off the bus to be surrounded by 6 little Peruvians all trying to sell us tickets to flights over the nazca lines. Eeni, meeni, myni, moed it and took a flight with Aero Condor which lasted about 40 minutes. The number of lines over the area is amazing. I think i might of missed a few of the designs due to my less than perfect eyesight but over all it didn't live up to my expectations.

We moved straight on from Nazca to a desert oasis called Huacachina. It's a lagoon surrounded on all sides by massive sand dunes which you can cruise down on boards. We chilled out on the first day and then went sandboarding on the second afternoon. There's no point even trying to stand on the boards that they have so you just lie down head first on your stomach and go.

On my second run Renee was down the bottom trying to line up that prize winning photograph and at this stage steering wasn't really an option for me. As luck would have
HuacachinaHuacachinaHuacachina

About 3 seconds before impact...
it my path was straight at Renee and she forgot to move. Hit her doing about 30kph. Cleaned her up good.

They have these cool buggies that they use to get around in the dunes. Nothing but a roll cage with a motor and some seats that they strap you in to. Great fun. Would kill to get behind the wheel of one of those things. Some of them look like something out of The Road Warrior.

THis was pretty much the end of our travels in Southern Peru. From here we were heading to Lima to catch a plane up to the Amazon jungle in the north of Peru.



Additional photos below
Photos: 13, Displayed: 13


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CuscoCusco
Cusco

Getting my sandals polished - then having him charge me a 2000% mark up on what he quoted me (very special clean sir!).
NazcaNazca
Nazca

Can ya see the pictures...
NazcaNazca
Nazca

Our stunt plane and pilot
NazcaNazca
Nazca

What about now?
HuacachinaHuacachina
Huacachina

The oasis town in the middle of the desert
HuacachinaHuacachina
Huacachina

Sunset over the dunes


13th February 2007

Keep up the good work!
G'day Crooksy, Awesome work with the blogs bud, thoroughly enjoyed them and hope to see more soon. Big hugs and kisses to Cabbie for us! Cheers Springa
15th February 2007

Well done Crooksy! See you're having the best time! .. but so far I've been desappointed... Where is the picture of you naked with a snake you jungle man!! all the best!

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