Boarding on the dunes

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- FOOD: Breakfast at the HI (yes, I set foot in the place).

- AREA: So pretty set in the middle of sand dunes the height of mountains (as steep as mountains too I discovered when climbing up them to go sand boarding).
Speeding down the sand dunes on your bum and looking like a sand monster at the end of it.
2 hours in Lima - my impressions were BIG city, lots of neon lights and busy.

- PEOPLE: Gringo city. But nice Gringos who let me hang out with them. Sucker hostel man who is taken in by a smile.

- WEATHER: The joy of the hot sun (not such a joy when climbing the dunes)


Tue 28th June: I slept for hours. It's so nice to be in a warm place at last! I breakfasted at the nasty HI type hostel and bumped into Chris, the American guy I breakfasted with yesterday at Nazca.
Such a small world this Gringo Trail lark. The hostel man took a shine to me even though I'd turned my nose up at his luxury 20 bed dorm and accepted the last of my 'dodgy' notes that I thought I'd never get rid of (many fake and ripped notes in Peru - they don't accept notes with even the tiniest rip).
He also let me and the boys hire boards for less (amazing what a big smile can get you) and let me have his own personal board as I'm obviously a pro after having done snow boarding once years ago!!

I immediately discovered the first big difference between snow and sand boarding - no lift to take you to the top. How exhausting it was to climb a steep sand dune in the boiling sun! After 2 hours climbing we'd only got about 10 metres up so decided to give it a practice. The next big difference between snow and sand - sand is not slippery. I had the perfect pose of course but the sand stopped the board from moving after 3 seconds.
We climbed right to the peak - what amazing views of the little oasis called Huacachina and Ica in the distance (with a big sand mountain slap bang in the middle of it!).

My bright idea of sitting on the board worked and after some mini runs, we sped all the way down. The board picked up such speed - fantastic! The wind also picked up speed though so my contact lenses were complaining at me somewhat. It was such fun it gave us the energy to climb up and do it again. (Mel if you're reading this, can you believe I craved such adventure after the wuss I was snow boarding?!)

The next big difference between sand and snow boarding - snow boarding doesn't leave you covered in a sticky layer of a mixture of sun tan lotion and sand. The shower at the hostel wasn't working and I'd made my mind up to get up to Ecuador as soon as possible so I had to travel by bus in a sticky mess!

I bumped into Netta again who threw a note at me out of her bus window of the hostel they were staying at in Lima bless her. It feels nice to have friends you keep bumping into. The bus to Lima was the best in ages - 'Bend it like Beckham' in ENGLISH - fab. I arrived in Lima late at night (bumped into Netta AGAIN) and decided the wide roads, neon lights and busy manicness was too much so eventually found the right bus terminal (lots of them all for different companies - very confusing) and got a ticket as far North as I could get - to Trujillo. It was a nice terminal to wait in for 3 hours but the woman I was set next to on the bus (who took MY window seat) rustled her carrier bag all night so not the best night's sleep.

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