Coast to Cuzco

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18 hour bus journey yesterday took us only abou 400km as the crow flies. Safety can be an issue on overnighters around here so we took a good company, and sat in first class for that added comfort. Comfort? Sure the seats just keep reclining till your almost bending backwards, and they are padded enough for any princess, but you still never know who you will be sat next to. A family of 4, with 3 under the age of 5 on one side and another with baby behind. Bendy roads are not comfortable at any age, but babies know how to complain.

And then some woman broke a bottle of red on the floor in the night, creating a small vinegary lake absorbed only by Isla's hat. Needless to say the babies complained.

Didn't sleep a lot then. Made up for it last night. In a hostel on a hill with a view worth climbing for over the beautiful colonial town of Cuzco, the centre of South American Tourism. This morning I watched a procession gather for Sunday carrying a small arc as the centre piece but otherwise made up of 10 or more different groups each wearing a different styl of costume and dancing to a different music. A little too cheery for a funeral and far too sombre for a wedding, but more variety than both combined.

Backtracking a bit. We landed in Lima on the 6th. And left before 7am. But it looked like an interesting city, on our exit bus journey.

Direct to Pisco. The gateway to Paracas park the home of the famous Candelabra (photo at http://www.perou.org/album/photos/view.php?lg=fr&opt=4&lieu=42&id=3811. actually these people have lots of good photos, just imagine we uploaded them...) and a poor-man's galapagos Islands, Islas Balestas. These are very hard rock outcrops a few miles form the coast, coated in Guana and the birds that produce it, sea lions and crashing waves. A multitude of arcs and caves, with unexpected rocky stacks make up a series of about 8 small islands from which highways of tourist speed boats plying the waters are only outdone by the overhead highways of birds leaving to fish. The sight/sound/smell is overwhelming.

Peru's coastline (previously unknown to me) is desert. It has rained 30 minutes in the last two years, and so remains of all sorts of ancient civilisations other than and older than the incas can be found here. Not that we met any of them.

Next stop was Ica, or rather Huaccachina: an Oasis surrounded by 300m dunes on all sides, near Ica. Sand-boarding and then washing sand off in the hostal's pool was the order of the two days here, topped off with a afternoon buggy and boarding trip out in the dunes driven by peruvians loons with more excitment than chesington, and a whole lot less safety precautions. Fanfuckingtastic.

Ica-Cuzco, you already know about, enough said.

Plans now are either to taking an alternative to the Inca trail to Machu Picchu or hike to the relatively unknown but nearly as impressive Choquiquarau, that is probably only less touristed due to its unpronounceable name, literally no-one dares ask for a tour there!

Not ridden any llamas yet, but we're on the look out.

ewan
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