Birds, sea lions, more pisco sours, lots of sand and the Nazca Lines

Firstly, just wanted to say thanks for all your messages etc and sorry I haven´t been able to respond to them all in person - just too popular!!

Ballestas Islands

We got up pretty early and headed to the port in Pisco to go on a boat round the Islands. We had to wait a couple of hours before we could get on the boats as the air was very foggy and visibility wasn´t great. Our guide, Raul, said that sometimes the harbour master simply liked to just be in control and therefore just wanted to send the boats out when he was ready. We finally got on the boat at about 10am and headed out to see lots of wildlife - boobies (the birds, not the other sort), cormerants, sea lions etc. It was pretty cool although the smell of bird shit and sea lions and diesel from the boat wasn´t particularly pleasant.

We then headed back to shore before going to a winery for lunch and learning about how the pisco drink was made. It was quite interesting and we got to taste all sorts of different types of pisco (a proper pisco should be 43% so pretty strong on an empty stomach). They also produce a sweet wine called ´Perfect Love´which Jess and I decided to buy a bottle of to drink later on!!

Huaccachino

After lunch we headed to the Huaccachino oasis for a bit of an adrenalin hit. We went on some sand buggies over the most amazing sand dunes. It was fantastic. We weren´t allowed to drive them and we had 8 in our buggy. It was a bit like a roller coaster ride but on sand. The dunes went on for miles and our driver would take us right up to the top of a dune and we had an almost vertical drop to the bottom. It was great fun.

We also had the option of sandboarding although I chickened out - yup I´m pathetic and regretting it now as it looked great fun. I´m not too bothered though as being on the buggy was fantastic.

Am also loving the local Inca Kola drink - although I don´t think my teeth are - it´s sooooo full of sugar!

Nazca and the Lines

We arrived in Nazca that evening and had a few things planned for the next day. Firstly we went to a cemetary about 25 minutes outside Nazca (can´t remember it´s name though). It´s in the middle of the desert and apparently the area gets a ridiculously small amount of rainfall a year (think they said 15 minutes). It was so hot looking round the graves. Seeing the mummies was quite interesting particularly as some had the most amazingly long dreadlocks I´ve ever seen. There were even mummies of babies. They are all buried in the foetal position so can be reborn in the next life and as they felt the bodies were in a safer position.

We then went on to see a pottery workshop and a gold mining workshop - it was quite interesting but I think we were sent there purely so we would buy things. Definitely a tourist trap, which I didn´t fall in to. Sorry no expensive gold jewellery for you!!

Finally we headed to Nazca airport for our flights over the Lines. It was a half hour flight in a four seater cessna. I did feel a bit queasy during the flight particularly when the pilot banked round in order for both sides of the plane to see the lines. It was great to see them although they weren´t quite as big as I thought they would be. The landscape itself was impressive too and it was great to be up in a little plane looking down on everything. I was the co-pilot so had a pretty good view of it all. Slightly concerning was that I noticed that the fuel gauge wasn´t working so luckily we were only going on a short flight.

Today was our last day at sea level for a while. We got on yet another bus at 11.30pm that evening for an uncomfortable night bus journey to Arequipa and back up to 2,300 metres.

No photos again I´m afraid - can´t seem to plug my camera in. I´ll get round to it soon, promise!

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