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After the luxury of having a car it was now time to lug our backpacks around properly and hit the mean streets of South America. Our first stop in Peru was the capital city of Lima - bit of a culture shock after spending the last 6 weeks in the US but it made a welcome change to be away from the lines of the same stores and fast food joints.
Our Hostel was in the Miraflores district which is a pretty nice suburb near the coast and was and run by 2 football mad Peruvians so spent a while after we checked in explaining who Luton were. After much laughter about their league position it took a while to explain the points deduction with the language barrier however I reckon they got there in the end. That´s even if they did seem more interested in being able to name every Man U player and their position rather than learn about league 2 football..
We were only in Lima a couple of days but that was plenty of time to catch the main sights of downtown. It was a bit of a mission getting down there using Limas public
Impromptu Dancefloor at Hostel in Nazca
Ronnie Corbet showing me the Peruvian Salsa.. transport which consists of hundreds of collectivos (mini vans) that dart around the place with a person just hanging off the side shouting the destination but we managed to jump on the right one and have a good wander round. Also enjoyed the cafe bars of the Miraflores area, along with watching the constant stream of football on the hostel TV.
From Lima we headed down south by bus to the Peruvian desert and the town of Nazca. The main reason people stop here is to see the Nazca Lines - huge ancient drawings etched into the earth's surface which can only really be seen properly from the air (look on google for the full explanations!).
After an unexpected late night drinking courtesy of the hospitality of our Hostel owner and his mate we were up early in the morning to take a flight over the Nazca Lines - that´s if you can call it a flight rather than a rollercoaster as it was on a very small 5 passenger plane which rolled from side to side so you can get a good view of the different ´lines´!
Apparently lots of people get airsick so it says
in the guide to not eat breakfast before you fly however it did not mention not drinking several beers, a few shots of piscos (the national spirit) and staying up late with the hostel owner and his mate the night before! (they were very insistant on making sure we had a good time).
Although it was not the best morning to have a hangover we did survive the flight and took in the surreal sight of the mysterious lines. A couple of canadians we took the flight with were a bit green though and they hadn´t even stayed up with us the night before!
After spending the remainder of the day chilling out by the pool of a nearby hotel pool it was time to jump on the bus again and take the 14hr overnight trip over the Andes to Cusco. Fortunately we had splashed out on good seats so we even managed to get a good nights sleep!
We arrived in Cusco late morning and were pleased to see we had picked another great hostel which was right on the main square. Cusco is a beautiful city that sits in a valley with much of the
Main Square - Plaza de Armas
Also the view from the hostl breakfast room city climbing up the surrounding high valley walls. It was the capital of the old Inca empire and some parts of the old Inca structures are still visible where they were built upon by the Spanish, but most of the centre is made of old Spanish Colonial buildings and plenty of old churches so is very picturesque.
Cusco is also the tourism capital of Peru given it is the starting point of trips to see surrounding Inca sites including Machu Picchu. It was also going to be the starting point of our trip to Machu Picchu via the Inca trail.
Given that the Inca trail requires some high altitude hiking our trekking company insisted we were in Cusco a few days before to aclimatize to the altitude as the city stands at a height of 3600m and the Inca trail goes up to 4200m! It was lucky we did as Neil was struck down with altitude sickness on the first night (think really bad man flu combined with a hangover with Mike Tyson punching you in the head) so we ended up taking it pretty easy for the few days we were in the city but still managed
to take in the main sights. Fortunately after getting some pills from the pharmacy, drinking plenty of coca tea (the local remedy) and staying off the beer for a couple of days he had sort of recovered in time for the start of the Inca trail.
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