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Published: September 26th 2009
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Cool Desert Guys
Up a sand dune in Huacachina Hi Everyone,
Here we go again but check it out....we´ve worked out how to put a few photos on!!!
Peru has been arguably our favourite country on the whole trip. That really is some statement but literally every place we´ve visited has been special.
From Lima we headed south to the desert oasis that is Huacachina. Originally we thought this may just be a convenient stop for the night on our way to bigger and better things but we were delighted by what we found. The ´town´(it´s tiny) is nestled amid gigantic sand dunes, the jewel of a lake is surrounded by palm trees and the view from the top of the dunes is like a real oasis out of a comic book. Climbing the steep dunes wasn´t half as much fun as running down. If you´ve never done that then you should. It´s hillarious taking massive strides that Jonathan Edwards would be proud of. If you get a chance just type Huacachina into Google Pictures and check it out. The tough climb was well rewarded with the view from the top, it is simply a stereotypical oasis that you´d never really ever expect to actually be able
Faster than the speed of light
Chris flies down the sand dunes in Huacachina to visit. Also, the picture on the back of the 50 nuevos soles note is of the exact view we had from the peak of the largest dune, we´d have liked to keep one as a souvenir but that´s nearly a tenner! (or 2 nights accommodation.... ha ha)
A couple of hours on a bus through another moonscape brought us to the town of Nazca. No we hadn´t thought we´d heard of it either. However, after our research we gave ourselves a few hours here to visit the world famous Nazca Lines. I´m sure some of you are still none the wiser but again, check it out on the web and I´m sure you´ll have seen pictures before. What a strange place. The lines are centuries old and are best appreciated from a helicopter but due to funds we settled for climbing up a Mirador Tower to take in views of three of the lines. The lizzard and the tree were pretty cool but the ´hands´took the award for best Nazca Line. Em was beside herself with excitment as the tower we were standing in shows the ´hands´from an upside down view point which makes it look exactly like
The Happy Couple
Loving life in the desert a little chicken with massive feet......sorry if you can´t visualise this, you´ll have to take our word for it. Strangely the camp little Peruvian dude taking the 3p for climbing up the tower asked us if we were from Yorkshire! When we said yes he became very animated and wrote out a postcard to Emily Bronte, making us promise to take it back with us and place it on her tomb. I guess we´re cheaper than a stamp!
Arequipa was our next stop and once again, what a pleasant surprise. After a 10 hour overnight bus ride we found ourselves at 6 o´clock in the morning stood in the awesome main square. The architecture here was something to behold, all four sides dominated by wonderful buildings. The cathedral is one of the most amazing views either of us have ever seen. From the south side of the square set between the cathedral´s identical clock towers sits the majestically beautiful Old Misty, a snow capped volcano that looms over the city. Unfortunately, both of us had colds during our time here but what a great place to recover. The whole place seemed to be continually buzzing to the sounds of
Em and her new pal Carlos
Em at the Nazca lines with our cab driver Carlos the buzzing student population. It´s fascinating to walk down a street full of youngsters dressed in very western clothes only to turn a corner to be face to face with an old lady wearing beautifully colourful traditional dress topped off with a bowler hat! We´re not sure why bowler hats seeing as they seem to perch them delicately on top of their heads, therefore neither protecting them from the sun or keeping them warm. Still, who cares, they look absolutely wonderful. The main reason for stopping in Arequipa had been to help us aclimatise to the altitude. It´s about 2500m above sea level which isn´t even half way up compared to some of our upcoming destinations.
Cuzco is high! What an incredible place. Yet another 11 hour overnight bus left us standing in a bus station at 5am in the freezing cold trying to catch our breath just from walking our backpacks out to the car park. We´d been expecting some kind of physical reaction to being so high up and to be fair we have both coped even better than had hoped. Em was particularly concerned about my asthma but it wasn´t too bad. If anything ít has
The Nazca Lines
Is that a chicken!! just come in waves. Right now we´ve been at altitude for over a fortnight and we´re both still hitting the occassional invisible brick wall that forces us to just stop and sit down for a while to catch our breath back. Anyway, back to the lovely Cuzco. We fell in love with the city and had to force ourselves to leave after three days. We wanted to stay forever. It is such a wonderful mixture of cultures and the old and the new seem to have combined as seemlessly as anywhere we have visited. Of course, everyone who goes to Cuzco is there on the way to Machu Picchu. Em has wanted to go there her whole life so this was always going to be pretty special. We took a train through the most amazing scenery on the planet to arrive at Aguas Calientes, the town at the bottom of Machu Picchu. Then at 5am we got up and made our way up the mountain. It was well worth the early start and as we were one of the first up the hill once inside we were greeted with the sight you´ve all seen on TV and in photos. It
Old Misty
Arequipa Cathedral with Old Misty in the background. simply takes your breath away when you catch your first glimpse. Em was almost in tears and was completely and utterly in awe of where we were. We hope the photos help show you all how magical it was for us both. If we weren´t already married I´d have proposed there no worries......absolutely zero chance of a girl saying no in that setting. After a few hours of wandering around awestruck we climbed down the mountain......and it hurt....lots and lots of stairs and very steep. We were both exhausted when we reached the bottom but elated by one of the best days of our lives.
We´re racing through the good stuff now, seems like every other day is another highlight. You should all have Peru on your list of places to go.....just out of this world.
Love Chris and Em xx
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