Hot and dusty in south west Peru

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Its been a few days since my last entry and a lot has happened. I certainly had a few cusquenas with some Aussie guys and Juan the night watchman after writing the blog. Fortunately, our coach wasn´t until the arvo. We travelled with Cruz del Sur coach company which was pretty damn good by anyone´s standards. We met some dude called Laurence who had booked on the same coach but decided it was too good and cashed in his ticket for a cheaper ride. Okay. It cost about 4 quid for a 5 hour bus ride. Its cheap enough for me. I´m happy to pay a bit extra not to have my luggage tied to the roof and chickens running around my feet. On the down side, the coach insists on playing this awful panpipe style regional music to help you relax. Maybe I´m culturally-challenged but I´m buying some spare batteries for my CD player on the next trip.

The scenery was impressive, if not exactly beautiful. The region south west of Lima is arid and mainly desert. The dunes stretched for miles to the Andes in the far distance. The roads are also lined with numerous shanty towns reminding you that Peru is essentially a poor country. This wasn´t a suprise but after the relative wealth of Miraflores, it was a wake up call.

We arrived the the parc nacional de paracas on 7th Oct and survived our first scam attempt. Some guy offered us a free ride from the coach but, instead of taking us to our pre-booked hotel, took us to his brother´s place. To be fair, as soon as I started getting pissed off he apologised and took us to the Hotel El Mirador. The hotel had a bit of a Bates Motel feel to the place not helped by the fact it was out of season. It was just us and some older germans. There was nothing to do except whip Sophie at cards... and have a couple of Cusquenas. The fact was, we were only in town to do the boat trip to the Islas Ballestas the next day.

The boat trip left at the uncivilised time of 8am. Illogical as well, consider the bus out of town wasn´t until 6ish and there is pretty much nothing else to do there. The boat trip was cool. We had a guide called (surprise surprise) Juan who kindly took the time to translate everything he said into English. We saw doplhins on the way out of port and, on arriving at the uninhabited islands, saw sea lions, penguins and literally thousands of sea birds of all different varieties. More impressive than it sounds. The islands have in the past yeilded tons and tons of the valuable guano (bird shit) which is an amazing fertiliser. Wars have been fought over the stuff apparently! It did smell a bit round there. The islands are now a national park and the birds are generally left alone save for a harvest every couple of years. We were taken round the islands on the boat for about an hour marvelling at the wildlife and trying to avoid getting hit by guano. Definitely recommended.

The tour finished at about 11 and so we had about 7 hours to kill. To be fair, Paracas is a nice little seaside town and we spent the time chilling at a couple of sea front cafes working on the tan and beating away the various locals who tried to sell us more stuff we didn´t want. I must say, I expected the weather to be pretty average until we hit Uruguay but it is damn hot here. I suppose it is desert after all. Perhaps I should read the guide book more carefully.

Last night we travelled to Ica, a regional capital. Unfortunately, no one had heard of our hotel (or couldn´t understand my poor spanish accent more likely) so we ended up going to the randomly chosen hostel Antonio. It was alright, rubbish bed but cable tv. Twisted priorities. Ica is a little crazy. It wouldn´t look out of place in an Indiana Jones film. Tight, narrow streets, vehicles careering down them, stalls and restaurants shoved into little rooms on the street. I really quite liked it. There is the same propensity for taxis here but they tend to be these little three wheeler things - like a cross between a motor bike and a car. We took one today to the oasis town of Huacachina which is about 4km outside of town. Huacachina is great!! I´ve never been to an oasis before but it was exactly what you would imagine. Giant sand dunes all around a lake about 100m by 50m. To top it off, there was a quaint little town situated around it. Town is probably too much... there was a row of beautiful buildings around the lake. It is very chilled, lots of hammocks, people laying by the lake, peruvian hippies wandering around or selling their wares.

The real reason we went there was to try the sandboarding on the dunes surrounding the oasis. It was great fun and deceptively easy to do. Me and Soph stuck at it for about an hour or so before the heat got a bit much and we were starting to look pink so we headed back for a drink. That reminds me, there are two soft drinks you can buy here... coke and Inca Cola the local Peruvian brew. It is illuminous yellow and tastes a bit like Tizer. Weird but not too bad.

I could have stayed at Huacachina for a couple of days it was so nice but it unfortunately is not an option. We are off to Nazca tomorrow to check out the eponymous lines.

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