The South Coast

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During my brief two hour stay in Lima it was hard to find a redeeming feature, I’m not sure if that’s because there aren’t any or because I wasn’t looking properly. In any case I moved swiftly down the coast to Pisco which is a small town along the Pan-American highway and the base for tours to the Islas Ballestas, better known as the poor man’s Galapagos.

From the small coastal village of Paracas my tour group was loaded onto a twenty seater speedboat for the short trip across the bay. Every rope and bar of the fishing boats which lined the harbour channel were smothered with hundreds of pelicans and guanay cormorants, who were steadily turning their perches white. Within five minutes of leaving Paracas I spotted a pod of bottlenose dolphins, the captain quickly powered up the engines and we spent the next half hour being entertained by these highly inquisitive creatures. The dolphins were constantly playing, splashing about and popping their heads above water to have a good look at us. The next stop on the tour was to view the 177m high, 64m wide pre-Incan Candelabra, which is carved into the hillside. Apparently it is based on a local sacred cactus upon which you can get very high, others believe it linked to the same culture who drew the Nazca Lines but I prefer the first theory.

The islands themselves are a maze of caves, arches and islets abundant with life. Close to the waters edge, large groups of lounging sea lions and waddling penguins are a common sight. The sea lions were very entertaining, jumping in and out of the water, swimming around the boat and occasionally fighting each other. Higher up the island, perched on a thick layer of guano were countless thousands of guanay cormorants, Peruvian boobys and pelicans covering every available surface. At one point the cormorants made a mass exodus from the island and practically flowed off the edge of the cliff above us; their destination was a shoal of anchovies a few hundred meters from the islands which was soon smothered black with diving birds. It was quite an amazing sight; during their passing many a passenger on our boat received a direct hit. On the way back to shore thousands of cormorants followed an adjacent route in single file procession just inches above the water, the line of birds must have extended more than a mile in either direction, it was an awesome sight especially when they left the surface in waves. The virtual wave of birds travelled through the procession like a length of rope that’s been flicked from one end.

Upon arrival back in Pisco I got a bus straight through to Huachachina, which is a natural oasis set amidst vast sand dunes in the desert. The picturesque lagoon about which the town is centred is fringed by palm trees, flowers and small restaurants, the spot is so pretty that it features on the reverse of the S/50 note; but that’s not why I was there, I was there for something much more exciting. The dunes surrounding Huachachina are so vast and steep that it’s possible to sand board down them, since trying to climb steep faces of sand on foot is an absolute bitch, I opted to go sand bugging as well. The buggies consist of a welded metal cage with big soft wheels that contains a few seats and a very large engine (Nissan skyline’s in our case I think). That engine was put to good use straight away as we whizzed up and over the giant sand dunes at ridiculously fun speeds, the buggy spent the next two hours dropping us off at the top of the giant dunes then driving down to pick us up. The boards we used to get down were snowboard shaped but made of wood covered with some kind of resin. Once strapped in, I through myself off the edge of as many dunes as possible in the time available with, I’ll admit, varying degrees of success (it’s the feet, they stuck out over the edge of the board and occasionally acted like handbrakes). Luckily I was in a group of slightly unhinged Australians and we soon left the other groups behind to find some really big dunes, by the end of the two hours we were going down at one hell of a pace. The whole experience was made even more fun by our driver who suffered from Schumacher syndrome, his favourite trick was to drive over the lip of a particularly steep and long dune in order too build up as much speed as possible; it was like being inside a life size remote control car going round a specially built obstacle course - fantastic. During the trip I got to walk along the aeolian ridge of one dune, its something I’ve wanted to do for years, it was very cool sending mini sand slides shooting down the slope either side of me, just like Lawrence of Arabia, only in Peru. The whole surrounding area was incredible, apart from Huachachina and the occasional oasis nestled into dip in the sand, vast dunes of yellow sand extended as far as the eye could see, Peru seems to have every landscape imaginable.

The next morning I caught a bus through to Nazca, during the two hour bus ride the rolling sand was slowly replaced by rocky hills and eventually by flat rocky earth. From the bus I had my first glimpse of the famous Nazca Lines; from ground level they just look like straight footpaths going off into the desert; it’s hardly surprising that they remained undiscovered until a chance flight over the desert in 1939 when they were mistaken for a complex irrigation system. The only way to see the lines properly is from the air, so I booked a flight for the next morning. Flying over the lines is entirely dependent on the weather conditions, which at this time of year is often cloudy resulting in delays at the airport of between 4 and 5 hours. My luck was clearly in since at 7am the guide knocked on my door (a full hour early) saying “perfect weather, no clouds, you fly in twenty minutes, we go now!”; an Australian couple and myself were raced to the airport then ushered straight into our little three seater aeroplane for an immediate take off. We were only the third flight to leave the runway that morning. For the thirty-five minute flight we banked left and right over all the most famous figures such as the monkey, condor, hummingbird and spider. The condor is 135m long but from the plane it looked no bigger than a hands breath. From ground level the figures are unidentifiable and since whoever made them had no way of viewing the lines from above their reasons remain a mystery. Although much of the tour was focused on the figures, the whole plane is striated with interconnecting lines, which vary in width from mere footpaths to tracks as wide and long as any runway. The lines are all straight and occasionally expand into trapezoidal shapes. Its no wonder Nazca remains such a mystery, why construct such a vast interconnecting pattern when it has no discernable use, seeing the lines first hand was amazing, it’s a real international treasure.

My luck was in all day, I only had to wait five minutes for a bus back to Ica, then despite changing bus company I hopped right onto a direct bus to Lima, where after checking into my hostel without a hitch, I went out to the cinema which happened to have the English version of Superman Returns showing within five minutes of my arrival; I love it when things go so smoothly. Since I had achieved everything I intended to on the south coast well within time I had a free day in Lima; to finish my trip on a high note and use up my few remaining US dollars I decided to jump off one last cliff and go paragliding over the pacific coastline of Miraflores. It turned out that my pilot was the current Peruvian national paragliding champion and so when I requested to go very high and very fast he willingly obliged. For the 25 minute flight we cruised along the coastline past all the posh high-rise hotels and along the cliff front waving to all the surfers far below. Half way through the flight we were joined by a pair of eagles which really made my day. Paragliding is about as close as people can get to flying like a bird; it’s a very gentle and relaxing sport which I would love to learn properly.



I am sitting in a internet café in central Miraflores on the 27th of July trying to kill the few remaining hours before my marathon flight home. I’m not sure how to finish the story of this blog; in the last six months I’ve achieved more than I thought possible, seen things that will stay with me always and written about every bit of it. I’ve done too much to summarise in a few lines, so I wont even try! This time last year I had no idea of what I would still be capable, or of how complete my eventual recovery would be, its for this reason that I had to get away. Over the last few months I’ve intentionally repeated and often gone beyond every physical activity that I ever tried before last summer; I had to do it all just because I couldn’t not. I have proved to myself that I am capable of doing whatever I want while feeding my insatiable travelling addiction, in so doing I have learnt two things; the first is that I have to keep travelling my whole life whatever the obstacles and the second is that I will probably not live in the UK for the rest of my life, the world is far too big a place to stay in one spot. I hope you have enjoyed coming around the world with me, sharing my experiences and if anyone travels more because of what they have read then all the hours spent in internet cafes has been worthwhile.


THE END

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Comments

[katydid]

Fare thee well, Willo!
Well, I must say I have looked forward to your blogs for some time now, and am sad to see you heading home. Glad you were able to enjoy your journeys to the fullest. It's been a blast.

[Suzanna]

welcome home
THANK YOU, WILL. Love'ya, Suzanna