Working Down Coastal Peru

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Hola amigos, como estas? (Spanish going quite well, on hour 4 of Spanish tapes which, worryingly, is an hour ahead of our tour guide who is supposed to look after us on the second half of the tour! Good incentive to keep at it or we will be going hungry and staying in dirt holes!)

In both Equador and Peru they are mostly really friendly and always waving to us as we drive past in our big truck and some even offer to help us when we are lost in the cities.

Also a lot of the hostel and hotels have live premiership and champions league so managing to keep up with most of the footie which is a bonus.

Here´s the travel blurb:

Went to visit two of the most important archeological sites in the north of Peru. They are both pre-Incan sites. The first was built by the Moche and is a huge pyramid, the temple of the moon, which is the twin of another pyramid, the temple of the sun. The two flat-topped pyramids (a feature of pre-Incan architecture - you apparently won’t ever find a pointy pyramid in South America!) face each other across the desert and are made of mud bricks (so they are called adobe structures, which means mud brick. So Abobe Acrobat is a crap name for a computer programme I reckon). In the middle of the two pyramids, there was a city. We saw where they used to make human sacrifices by pushing poor buggers off a cliff.

We then went on to Chan Chan, which is a mud city which stretches as far as the eye can see across the desert. There were 10,000 structures in its heyday, today we visited one of nine compounds into which the city was divided and saw plazas, their reservoir and cemetery (which was robbed by looters years ago but still a bit creepy).

Then another 10 hour drive to Lima which was a bit average. Some nice colonial stuff large american style shopping malls and bars and then loads of very poor shanty towns. As it is the birthday of one of the girls on the tour got rather drunk at some very strange Peruvian club. We are also introducing our truck mates to poker, however there is one guy who plays it online so seems to be winning rather too regulary!

From Lima went camped "bush" style on amazing beaches on a national park then to a Galapagos style island with loads of sealions, pelicans, pengiuns and bird which was wicked. Our truck played footie against local Peruvian team. Our true english grit and class payed off as we beat then 10-4 until bad light stopped play. Dont want to blow me own trumpet but I put in man of match performance with the first stunning goal and loads of quality keeping and me kee held up. Becky got supporter of match with some mexican waves and traditional quality abusive football chants!

Also went up in light aircraft to see the Nazca lines which are amazing but we all felt decidedly sick then some 2000 year old cemetry with preserved bodies due to the extreme desert conditions. Stayed in an oasis in the middle of the desert and went dune buggying, they take you in a buggy then razz over the dunes and down them so it is a bit like a sandy roller coaster! Also did sandboarding which is pretty poo compared to snow.

We´re in Arequipa now which is a really cool city and had a wicked night eating Llama and Ostrich then dancing till 4.30, but poor becky missed out on the dancing with the first dodgy stomach of the tour. Done with the peru coast now and its all hard work and up hill all the way to Machu Piccu.

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Photos

Home on Road
Here is our home for the next 8 weeks. Truck is called Cindy. Got all mod cons - stove, tables and chairs for outside, even a kitchen sink!

Nazca Lines and wierd shapes if you look closely
Look closely at the right hand side of the pic for a pair of hands! and the other lines are good too - lots of arrows and parallel lines. Bonkers.

Comments

[Nolberto Salano]

Hope you packed your shinpads
You might think you're a bit tasty, thrashing that sleepy beach team 10-4 but it will be a different story in Manch Piccu. Forest football is for real men - they eat cocky English punks like you for breakfast.