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Published: February 6th 2009
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So weve broken our record and completed the longest journey yet.....Cusco to Lima by bus in 23hours...uurrrrrgggggghhhhhh, sore bums or what!
The journey took us from being chilly at high altitiude through the mountains during the night and out onto drier desert mountains, where we passed the highest-known Sand dune in the world (2078m) and began to sweat! We planned to stop off at Nazca after 15hrs where we thought we´d break the journey, grab some lunch and waste a few hours before jumping onto another night bus. We also ummed and aahhed about whether to visit a lookout, from where you could see a few of the ancient "Nazca Lines" - Google it and see what I´m talking about!....We certainly couldn´t afford to take a flight to view them properly! and so in the end decided that it probably wasn´t worth the treck as the scale of the lines is just so large that we´d hardly see anything from a few meters off the ground. So as we were pulling in to the dusty town of Nazca we changed our minds and decided to return to our hardcore ways and stay on for the duration!
Dan - The
Breakfast at the market....
....Quails eggs on the go!! only problem with jumping back on the bus was we had to bargain with the driver the fare from Nazca to Lima, so Nic does her thing and got it down to ¨Veinte Soles por persona" 20 soles each, not bad, but that´s not good enough for Nic, she´s getting good at bargaining, so she tries some more, and just as she´s getting somewhere some arse-wipe of a mummies boy flashpacker, born with an Ipod up his backside butts in and says "we paid 30 soles, so you may as well take it for 20" this snapped the driver back to reality and instead of giving in agreed with him that we should pay 20....rrraarrrggghh!
Nic - So after a days travelling we arrived in Lima, bored, aching, shattered and grumpy! But this wasn´t just Central Lima that we arrived in, on no, they couldn´t make it that easy for us.....For some reason there is no central bus station here and, as luck would have it when you´re not feeling on top form, the bus company that we had chosen had it´s main office based in a rather dodgy suburb......as soon as we rolled into the yard the security
guard clanged the huge metal gate shut...gulp! There was nothing for it, we had to give in and take a taxi (only about the 4th in a whole years travelling, not bad ey??!!) who dropped us nicely in the safe (but stupidly expensive) area of Miraflores.........Where, of course, just to top things off, there were no rooms left!! We managed to find a couple of beds in a dorm and so settled for them and then headed out to try and satisfy our aching bellies and find some food, fast before we passed out......a dodgy chinese, and our worst meal in a whole year....What a great day!
Dan - Although we managed to ease the stress away by obtaining a box of cheap wine and sat outside listening to a group of ´Argentino´s´ strumming on their guitars and singing the night away. Which is pretty much what we have done every night here, sat out front of the hostel drinking cheap wine singing along.....or trying to!
Nic - So again we´re in a city and there´s not much more to do than mooch around and take in the atmosphere. I was amazed at how beautiful some of the
buildings were and really love how they still paint them all so nicely. We also headed down to one of the nearby beaches but were a little disappointed at how polluted it seemed and so passed at having a dip!
The food in Peru is a little more interesting than we´ve had so far in South America and so I´ve taken the opportunity, as usual, to freak Dan out with eating weird things. Breakfast one day was a few Quails eggs from a mobile street vendor (which he thinks look too much like mini chocolate eggs to taste like real eggs and so of course is "Wrong"!) and yesterdays lunch was "Piquant de Cuy" - Curried guinea pig....yes of course, it did just taste like chicken!
Dan - One thing we decided to do was to visit a ´free admission´ pyramid historical site, but when we got there it was free no longer BUT the admission fee did include an English speaking guide, bargain we thought!!!!!!!!!!!!. Ha well it seems the English speaking guide was not an English speaking guide at all BUT a local who was very good at memorising english words from paper!!! nothing made sense
so we almost ´did the off´ out the back exit when she wasn´t looking, but decided we wouldn´t make it in time before she caught us. Apprantly the pile of rubble we were looking at was in fact an ancient pyramid dating back to AD400.........ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz. she even had the cheek to ask for a tip.!!!! HOWEVER the highlight was the fact that this site is home to a very rare hairless dog!! very strange animal looked abit scabby but apprantly has healing powers!!! I was quite angry with it for approaching me because I can´t help but stroke animals when they come my way, so I gave it a scratch....Hope my hair doesn´t fall out too!
We fly to Argentina early tomorrow morning so yet another night in the airport awaits us. so I guess more blogs from there.
Only 3 weeks left!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Us
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dad walton
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How many folks get to do what you've done!
Hello people, Don't look so sad, ain't seen you really smiling for a blog or two. Coming home ain't that bad, is it? Just think of what you've both done, it's an incredible journey, and you've done it all by yourselves. Well done, we're all very proud of you. Monumental achievement, I really mean that, and you should be very proud too. I know it's coming to an end in a few weeks, but the memories you're going to have are unforgetable, they will last a lifetime. Love you lots, Dad