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Published: April 7th 2007
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Where to begin? Perhaps yesterday is a good place to start! It was an adrenalin infused day!! Actually that´s a complete understatement!! It was one of the most intense, jam packed days ever. First we headed out of our hotel in Lima (Where we had arrived the night prior, after yet another fiasco with LAN airlines, or maybe it was the travel company, we may never know...but my mantra was, our health is good, and nothing catastrophic has happened to us, thus this was all in the name of experience. Marina said she liked my attitude, thus she´d travel with me again.) at the unfathomable hour of 4:15 am (although we´ve had numerous early start times this trip)! We drove, with our driver Roberto, to Paracas where we had a delicious banana leaf wrapped chicken tamale on the ocean while a lad named Jesus chatted with us at length about Lima and Trujillo. We were waiting for a boat to take us out to the ¨poor man´s Galapagos¨.
We waited a bit longer than expected, and amidst organized chaos, as it seemed everyone in Peru was wanting to take the same tour. After about an hour and a half,
we got rock star treatment and were escorted to the front of the line...seems there was some sort of pay-off involved by one of our guides. Marina was amazed and intrigued by all the commotion, as was I...but eventually we were off on a choppy, bumpy ride to the islands just off of Paracas.
It was grand to see SO many birds, but the sea lions were mesmerizing! There about 1,500 of them, and many had just had baby sea lions! Two of my colleagues have been to the Galapagos islands, just last summer, thus I know from viewing their photos that the Galapagos has a much more enchanting and wider variety of animals, but it was still intriguing to see the sea lions in their native environment.
Next we drove to Ica for our eagerly anticipated flight over the Nasca/Nazca lines. However, as has been the case with so many of our flights, organized chaos came into play once again. So to pass the time we enjoyed our pre-arranged lunch at a local resort. Upon returning to AeroCondor, one of the companies that flies over the Nasca lines, we learned we would have to wait, yet again,
several more hours. We are accustom to waiting...so what was a few more hours? Then our driver suggested a ride in a dune buggy. Why not we thought....
Little did we know we were in for the drive of our lives! Rollercoasters simply can not compare with the ride we experienced. Baffling to think that the bus at Macchu Picchu was frightening to me, as we crested over huge sand dunes and plummeted down. Although that was all fun, an unexpected highlight was an opportunity to sand board on the huge dunes. So fun!!
After waiting a bit longer we finally got on 12 seat plane to view the Nazca lines. The lines are huge glyphs in the sand which can only be viewed from the air. There is still no explaination about how or why the huge glyphs were created...but it is estimated that they were formed around 3000 B.C. What a plane ride! As we constantly swerved so both sides of the plane could view all the glyphs. I was fortunate to get a decent photo of the hummingbird, which I intend to post upon my return.
Quite a day indeed!!
Almost seems to
over shadow the Uros Islands on Lake Titicaca (the world´s highest navigable lake, as we were so often told) where everything, and I mean everything, is made of reeds. Yes reeds. A fascinating group of people!
Well, I have rambled at length...just wanted to share my excitement. And I must add that Marina is an awesome travel companion; I do not know how I would have survived without her, as she is fluent in Spanish, so I have benefited greatly!
Two other things to note, that have perplexed us both, is that you can use dollars in Peru. The native currency is Soles, but even the cash machines give you an option to withdraw Soles or Dollars...so strange, it almost seems wrong. And then there is the weather...particularly in Cusco and Puno...where we experience sun (with a bit of sunburn) and rain and hail all in one day!
We have had a great time...and after touring Lima today we´ll head to the airport (hopefully without complications this time) and arrive back in Chicago late tomorrow morning!
Thanks again for all your comments and emails...it has been lovely hearing from you!!
Love from Lima.
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Heather J.
non-member comment
lovely Lima!
Hi! Arek and I are really enjoying reading about your trip!