Inca Heights Tour - Week 1

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We arrived in Lima a couple of days before our tour was due to start. Here we made the most of the artesian markets and stocked up on Alpaca products and other Peruvian crafts.

After a chase around the city to find the tour start, we finally met up with our travelling companions for the next 3 weeks, who turned out to be a great group of people.

First trip was to Paracas where we had our first group meal, tried an infamous Pisco Sour and got to know the group.

In the morning we took a boat ride out to the Ballestas Islands where we saw dolphins, penguins and a huge colony of sea lions. There are thousands of birds on these islands and we were among the fortunate ones who were on the receiving end of bird poo on our heads! There are actually people who live on the islands just to farm the bird muck!

Next stop was Huacachina, an oasis enclosed in sand dunes. Mark and the others went off on crazy sand buggies to go sand boarding down the enormous dunes. It was an amazing experience enjoyed by all, except Lorna who was too chicken to go! In the morning we both climbed to the top of the nearest dune which took almost an hour- it was worth it for the view back down to the oasis.

The flight over the Nasca lines the next day was not a pretty experience for most as the planes are tiny and most people felt quite sick afterwards. The actual lines were worth a view but difficult to take photos of as they are not as clear as we thought they would be and the planes swerve around a lot.

On the way to Puerto Inca we stopped at Chauchilla Cemetary to see the remains of wealthy Nasca people who still had hair and clothes. We then camped on the beach at the original Inca port and caught a glimpse of our first (of many) Inca ruins. The evening was spent with beers and a barbie around the camp fire.

Arequipa was the next destination on our tour. It is an attractive city with a nice main square. We stocked up on some more arts and crafts and visited Santa Catalina Monastery, which is a city within a city.

Our next adventure took us to Chivay, in preparation to travel to the Colca Canyon. On the way we passed a point of 5,000 metres where Lorna started to feel quite sick from the altitude. Once we were back at a reasonable height, everyone got off the bus to take photos of alpacas, llamas and peruvian children, when we all got back on the bus it was hilarious to see everyone fully kitted out in alpaca scarves, gloves and ponchos.

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