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Published: February 2nd 2007
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hmmm the Pool
Saved our skins on the hot days Lima wasnt that exciting, just another big dirty city. Felt pretty safe there and had no troubles. We walked for about 1 and a half hours to Miraflores to see the beach and the pretty part of town. The beach was at the bottom of some serious cliffs, and was rather spectacular, although it was made entirely of stones. We didnt swim as apparently it is fairly polluted, but this didnt stop the locals, and one English man nearly joined them after venturing too close to the waves.
We meet a couple of Germans at our hostel as well as a Canadian girl, with whom we had a rather enjoyable night of playing Scum (card game) and drinking (well liz and I were drinking). The hostel was fine we had our own room and bathroom, there was ping pong as well to play, as well as a rock climbing wall.
We stayed for 2 days and that was about as much as we could take, we moved onto Pisco which is 3 hours south by bus which cost us $10NZ each. We arrived to a shanty town and promptly decided to leave and go to Ica where the Germans
The Oasis
Didnt go swimming.... were going to be. We decided that we didnt feel safe in Ica and grabbed a taxi to Haucachina which was 4km away over sand dunes.
We arrived to an Oasis (literally) it was in the middle of sand dunes that would have been close to 300m high, and out of this desert was a lake and a small village of hostels and places for us tourists to eat. We stayed at a pretty cool hostel with a pool and a great bar as we discovered!! On our first night there, the hostel put on a communal bbq and for $14Nz we could eat and drink all we wanted.....so we did (enough said).
The following morning we were escorted by I would have to say the best taxi drivers in the world on a winery tour of 3 vineyards, tasting and all. Pisco straight which is extremely potent was also included on the tour. the taxi drivers were a great laugh and they entertained us all morning with their jokes and banter.
We arrived back at the hostel for a quick dip in the pool before heading out on one of the best adventures of our life.
About 50 of us were bundled into these massive dune buggies that seated up to 9 people and headed for the desert. We were flying across the dunes sliding sideways towards dune edges that dropped over 100m, bouncing over small crests, flying down the sides of massive dunes head first and getting airborne.
In the middle of nowhere we stopped and grabbed our sand boards to proceed down a couple of (well what we thought at the time) steep and kind of scary dunes. we made it down alright without too much trouble, but to our amusement and others, there were many bails, and several unintentional cartwheels with the boards still attached. We were piled back in again and set off across the desert to even higher dunes which were steeper and longer, Liz made it down first but had a small tumble but recovered quickly, and I made it down without fault :-) once again there were bails, but bigger faster and more impressive as speed was now a real factor. We thought we were heading home when they took us over a massive dune edge that dropped at about 60-70 degrees and went for about 200-300m down.
Sand Boarding
These Dunes were massive!! Once we did it in the buggies they took us to the top and said off you go now on your boards!!! rather scary but awesome and once again the kiwis showed the way with Liz zooming down first in perfect style, and me following a little slower at first then faster towards the bottom.
We swear our driver had a death wish, he was insane the speeds he was pulling and racing the other buggies across the dunes in the fading light, while rubbing his eyes to clear the sand (all encouraging things of course). The thing that made us worry was that all the other drivers were calling him crazy, which built great confidence. We finally made it to the top of the dune overlooking the oasis and Liz yelled oh thank goodness its over, then cracked up laughing. It was an unbelievable experience and now we can say we have been sand boarding and dune bugging in Peru.
Of course at the hostel we made yet more friends with some other Germans, a couple of Canadians and two Aussies, and a couple of Dutch girls as well.
We moved onto Nazca after two days,
The View from our room
We were Surrounded by these things to view the famous Nazca Lines from an aeroplane which we enjoyed but from what we can tell the camera hasnt picked the lines as well as our eyes did, but still a fascinating experience, and I am amazed at how they were drawn. We were offered a trip around a local cemetery that had a lot of history with it but Liz wasnt too keen on seeing skeletons of people so we passed on that one (and fair enough too).
We met up the Dutch girls and the aussies who were staying at our hostel, which turned out to be a blessing as we had to check out our room at 12 noon and our bus did not leave till 8pm that night. We talked played cards and slept to pass the time. as always Peruvian time isnt exact and we finally boarded our bus at 9pm for our 14hour journey to Cuzco where we will be doing our inca trail. The bus ride was at best tedious, but we did have some rather comfortable leather reclining seats that nearly went flat. But due to a few people sitting behind us who didnt know the meaning of sleep,
we had sporadic moments of shut eye.
We are now sitting in an internet cafe in Cuzco writing this, and we can say that the city is absolutely beautiful, a little like Italy in the design of the buildings. We have a stunning view of the main plaza from the balcony at our hostel. being at high altitudes has already taken its effect with me carrying Liz´s backpack as well as mine up the last 150m of steep steps, as she was having trouble breathing and no inhaler was easilyaccessiblee.
Thats about it for now, we will update you again after the Inca Trail, and let you know how it went (fingers crossed)
Lots of Love
Josh and Liz
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