Lima and the Southern Coast of Peru

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We had heard mixed reviews of Lima from other travellers along the way, but we had to fly there to get to the Southern Peruvian coast, so we decided to spend a couple of days checking it out. We stayed at a hostel in the trendy area of Miraflores and it was lovely! There were tonnes of nice restaurants, lots of shops and a generally clean, cosmopolitan feel. We had been told that Lima could be dirty, smoggy and dangerous, so Miraflores was definitely a pleasant surprise. We spent the first evening wandering around and had an early dinner at a Lebanese place (!) and booked seats on a double-decker bus tour for the next morning.

I had heard about the bus tour from a cousin (thanks Rachael if you're reading this!) and had been looking forward to it since we finalized our plans to come to Lima! It's a great way to see a city and feel like you're above all the stress and noise of traffic. Our tour took us past some pre-Inca ruins and through Miraflores to downtown, which has been designated a World Heritage site. The big, airy San Martin square and the brightly coloured colonial buildings of the Plaza de Armas were beautiful. The tour included a guided walk through the crypts of the San Francisco monastery, which at one time was the only place in Lima that people were buried. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take photos, but the crypts were creepy, dank mazed filled with piles and piles of human bones, all grouped by body part by the monks. I believe they did this in order to conserve space and create a more organized tourist attraction, but it still seemed weird! We decided to wait for the afternoon bus back to Miraflores and hopped off to explore the downtown area.

Most of our exploring consisted of wandering the streets around the two big squares. We went into the museum of the Spanish Inquisition, but none of the info was in English and there were no English guides that day so we were disappointed. We wandered towards the bus stations to try to organize our trip to Ica for the next day and ended up in a more grubby, seedy area of town that we were glad to leave. A highlight was buying a huge, refreshing slice of watermelon from a street vendor! We did a bit of shopping and met up with the bus again at the monastery. We ended up back in Miraflores in time to take a nap before a late dinner at the high-end mall built right into the coastal cliffs. It was one of the best meals of the trip (scallops cooked with cheese right in the shell and shrimp-stuffed sea bass for me, paella for Chuck) and we ate at a table perched right on the edge of the cliff overlooking the sea.

We had been told of the fantastic sandboarding and dune buggy tours in Ica by multiple other travellers, so we decided we should check out this part of the Peruvian "gringo trail" south of Lima. In all, I have to say that it was a bit disappointing, and possibly because it is a gringo trail and doesn't feel like much of an authentic Peruvian experience. We decided to base ourselves in Huacachina which is an oasis about 5km outside of Ica that in its glory days was a retreat for rich Peruvians on vacation. Now it has an air of former grandeur gone to seed. Still, it was kind of nice to stay put with our bags and still get to see a large number of the area's attractions.

On our first day we set out early for a 2-hour bus ride to Nazca to fly over the Nazca lines. These are giant figures and shapes carved into the desert by pre-Inca civilizations and the reason for their creation is unknown. After a hot, sticky bus ride we were shuttled to the little airport which appears to have been built purely for tourists wanting to see the lines. We were herded on to a little plane and before we knew it, we were circling and tilting at nauseating angles to get the best view of these faint figures far below! It hadn't even occurred to me that I might get airsick and I had to try all the old tricks of deep breathing, looking at the horizon, and not thinking about the grilled cheese and huge bottle of orange juice I'd had for breakfast minutes before we took off! The lines were impressive but it was hard to get into the spirit of imagining what their purpose might be and wondeirng if they're truly made for signalling to aliens, when I was trying not to throw up.

We arrived back in Huacachina fully-recovered, which was a good thing because our next activity was a roller-coaster dune buggy tour and sandboarding! This was actually way more fun than I thought it might be. The buggy drivers would zoom up the steep dunes and plunge down the other side while we shrieked like kids (well Chuck isn't much of a shrieker but I sure did!) The sandboarding would have been way better if we'd had better boards (without screws protruding from the bottom and with proper wax rather than an old candle) but it was still a thrill to go headfirst down a steep hill. It was kind strange for those of us who are used to doing such things in the snow! Chuck was brave enough to do a couple of runs standing up and he didn't fall once. I spent the whole time getting sand in my face and down my shirt, but it was great! Another surprise was the beauty of the scenery. The tours go out in the late afternoon to avoid the extreme heat on the dunes and we boarded until sunset, which was beautiful.

The next morning we set out in the opposite direction, to the village of Paracas on the coast. From there we did a boat tour of the Islas Ballastas, which are also known as the "poor man's Galapagos". You are not allowed to walk on the islands, but the boat circled the many natural harbours and inlets to see thousands and thousands of seabirds, hundreds of sea lions (many with pups! or is it cubs?) and layers and layers of guano! The seabirds included surprisingly graceful pelicans, colourful Inca terns, ridiculous boobies and some penguins thrown in the mix. I was amazed again, as I had been in the Falklands, by the way all these species co-existed peacefully. We humans should take note.

In the afternoon we boarded a tour bus to the Paracas National Reserve which is a land and sea park that includes the Islas Ballastas. The landscape was barren and sandy and we drove to various coastal viewpoints to get the most out of its stark beauty. One attraction used to be a natural rock arch over the pounding surf, called the Cathedral, but this collapsed in the 2007 earthquake and all that is left is a flowerpot-type outcropping and a jumble of rocks. It was still striking but kind of depressing to think that it had been standing for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years, and we had missed it by three! We had lunch in a tiny village on the beach and had to make our own way back to Huacachina from Pisco, again choosing the hot, sticky bus option.

On our last day in the oasis we had a lazy morning and set out for a wineries tour in the afternoon. We had assumed we'd be touring with other tourists but we ended up having our own driver to the three bodegas. The first was an ultra-modern wine and pisco bodega called Vista Alegre, where we sampled the ultra-sweet wines that are the preference of most Peruvians. Next we visited El Catador where they still make their pisco the old-fashioned way, stomping the grapes by foot (?) and ageing it in traditional clay casks. Our third stop was a highlight as we met the pisco-maker actually working on the vintages and he let us sample several of them straight from the clay cask! This was Bodega Alvaraz and the owner is also a collector of pre-Inca artifacts. His "museum" is right out of an Indiana Jones movie with textiles, animal skins and human skulls with bits of flesh still clinging to them all displayed hodge-podge among the casks of Pisco. We headed back to our oasis feeling like we'd gotten the most out of our time on this part of the gringo trail.

After our time in Ica, Huacachina and around, we spent another day in Lima before flying to Salvador in Brazil. It was just as relaxing and enjoyable a time as the first visit! Maybe it was the sudden immersion back into city life after a week in the rain forest, or maybe it was the sunny, warm weather, but for whatever reason Lima made a great impression on me and I would definitely go back if given the chance!

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