A mouth full of sand

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Hey all

Hold on tightly for the ride... The sun is behind you, slowly dipping below the dunes. You're wiggling your way onto a board, getting ready to fly down a sand dune that's 50m high.

Woooooooosh off you go - your hands are holding on to the straps, but they grip tighter the faster you go. You scream at the top of your lungs with sheer excitement and fear and your eyes are open as wide as you can open them because it would be scary shutting them on such a ride.

THUD. Thud. thud.

The ride is over as quickly as it started. You've hit the bottom and roll off the board in a bit of a dazed state. Now you've got the fun part of trying to get rid of all the sand that you accumilated in both your eyes and mouth while enjoying such a thrill. A week later and you can still feel sand in your shoes no matter how many times you attempt to shake the sand out. Welcome to sandboarding - we spent an afternoon doing it and boy was it the best fun I've had a in a long time!

We had 2 buggies for our group which was great as once we were all strapped in, then we would hune down the dunes (unfortunately, or maybe it is fortunately, that none of us were allowed to drive the buggies, who knows where we would have ended up) but the best bit about the dunes was that we'd ride up to the top of the dune and it was only when the buggy turned to go down them that you realised how steep the dunes were - it was just like being in a real-life rollercoaster.

Since we left Cusco, we've just been busy driving up the coast of Peru, stopping at beaches and ruins along the way. Unfortunately we appear to be having some slight weather mishaps as it is very cloudy and misty when we are at the beach but when we are away from the beach, out comes the sun and its happy and hot days. (Yes I'm sure you lot in London will be pleased that Im now not having sunny days every day...)

Spent a couple of days in Lima (nothing to do there except to eat and shop - its a very smoggy place too).

Really enjoyed Arequipa as its a great place full of character and we would all loved to have spent an extra couple of days there. It was there that we saw Junita (an iced 'maiden' mummy) who was discovered in 1995 in Mount Ampato, which is in the mountain range just north of Arequipa. She was a 12-14 year old princess who was offered as a sacrifice to the Inca Gods and Apus, then buried on the mountain, along with other goods offered to the gods.

Also while we were in Arequipa, we visited the Convent of Santa Catalina, which was built in the 16th century and served as a monastery for over 400 years before it was opened to the public in 1970. At its peak, there was 500 nuns who lived there and now there are 24, aged between 18-94 years.

Tomorrow we head to Punta Sal for 3 days on the beach (I might give surfing a go) and then we head up to Ecuador for a just over a week.

Till next time,
Brooke

PS I've put photos up on all the entries, so feel free to have a look.

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