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Published: June 10th 2008
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Hey all, sorry for being cut short yesterday, I turned around and my entire group was at the dinner table being served!
I can´t remember where I left off, but I´ll try to hit the highlights again. Breakfast is being served, so I´ll keep it short.
After the first morning, we drove to Pisco (details about the crazy bus rides later), and got to our hotel there (which was quite nice, and as it turns out, Ï´m gonna have a room to myself for the whole trip... I´m person #15. :-)
Pisco had an earthquake last august/september, 2000 people died, including the entire congregation attending the church. Apparently the priest told them it was going to be okay and to stay inside. Then the roof collapsed. The destruction is pretty incredible, buildings are just gone. Our hotel used to be surrounded by other buildings, but now is pretty much by itself for a block or so. We all had a Pisco Sour that night, Yummy!
The next morning, about half of us got up early for a 7am departure for our trip to the ballestas Islands. I was fine until we got there, then started feeling seasick.
Nazca Mummy
It only rains about 30mm each YEAR in Nazca. There are dozens of these pits around the cemetary, but grave robbers had dug up more than 80% of them. I just felt sick, but I did still manage to get a few photos in. It was very pretty, and we saw sealions, penguins, and peruvian boobies (har har har). More details about that trip later.
After the boat trip, we got back and hopped on a bus to a pisco vinyard. They have been making pisco there for about 300 years, in the same way. I´ve got pictures and everything, to come later. We ended the tour with a tasting session of about 8 bottles of the different products they produce there... we were pretty tipsy by the end of it! We stayed for lunch (I had the fish of the day, it was delicious!), then hopped back on the bus.
Our next stop was for dune buggies and sandboarding. Think Lawrence of Arabia type desert, crossed with The Beachcombers type dune buggies. The ride was AWESOME! It was pretty much like a roller coaster. The desert was awe-inspiring, it gave a pretty good idea of what it would be like to be stranded in the desert.... not much fun, for sure! But... Sandboarding! Think tobogganing down 120 to 150 foot cliffs. Now think of snowboarding. Take the snowboard, lie down on it, hold on tight, and get pushed off the edge. What a rush! I was the very first person to try it ) inadvertently, I admit, and it was an incredible time, I´d do it again in a heartbeat!
After that awesome stop, we hopped back on the bus, and headed to Nazca and our hotel. We arrived at about 6pm, and had a nice dinner at 7pm. Most of us stuck around for drinks after, but we were all pretty tired after a crazy day! Today (I think it´s tuesday) we´re going to take a small plane ride up and check out the Nazca lines. We´re leaving at 8am (it´s about 7:30 now), and then we´re going to an ancient cemetary (sorry about the spelling... no spell check, and I don´t know how to spell it.) We come back from that and hang out here for a few hours, then head into Nazca to drop our bags at a bus depot, and have dinner before getting on our midnight bus to... um... somewhere else.
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That´s got you up to date, the only thing I though I´d mention is that apparently at about 9am on friday the 7th, there was a magnitude 5 earthquake in Lima. I slept through it, but the other people who were in town at that point said they heard and felt it. Bah! My first earthquake and I´m SLEEPING! Oh well, I´m sure I´ll have opportunity for more.
Going to have breakfast now, I´ll talk to you all later!
Take care!
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