Peru - part 1

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Peru - part 1

I arrived in Peru on the 21st Jan at about 12.30am, although in my mind it was about 3am!!

On the evening of the 21st I went along to a group meeting to meet the rest of my intrepid group. There are 6 people on the tour in total and we are being guided by Armando who is from Cusco. That evening we were filled in on the fun packed 21 day trip ahead of us.

I had some further excitment on the 21st when I found out that someone had managed to take some money out of my acocunt! Needless to say I stoped my card and ordered a new one.....the joys of travelling.

22nd January 2008

After breakfast we headed down to the city centre in 2 taxis. Armando gave us a guided tour where we got to see the government buildings (that were all yellow) along with Museo de arte religioso, Basillica catedral de lima and went inside the Franciscan monastery and museum. Inside the monastery we went to see the catacombs where we saw many bones and skulls. Following that we headed to see the changing of the guards.

After heading back to the hotel we got a 4hr local bus to Pisco. Once we got to Pisco we had a transfer to the hotel, which was the only hotel that survived the earthquake. Throughout Pisco there were many people who were still working their way through the rubble breaking the remainder of the buildings down. We were told that the day of the earthquake they saw a light in the sky a bit like a meteroite and so when they saw a rainbow in the sky this morning they were wondering if something was going to happen.

23rd January 2008

After breakfast we got a bus to the Ballestas port where the Ballestas island tour starts. Unfortunately when we got there it was quite foggy and so we had to wait for a couple of hours before we started the tour. It was absolutely amazing. We saw various types of birds along with penguins and sea lions.

Following the tour we got a private bus (very, very nice one) to Huacachina oasis which took about 3-4hrs. At the oasis we went on a sand dune buggy and even did a bit of sand-boarding. My group decided to have a competition to see who went the furthest down the sand dunes on their board. It was a bit of an international competition given we have 1 australian, 1 american, 1 chineese, 2 swiss, 1 british and 1 peruvian (team leader) on the tour!!

We had some lunch and then headed off to Nazca.

24th January 2008

That morning we headed off in a private bus to go on a flight over the Nazca lines. The plane that I got on could carry 4 people (including the pilot), so that was part of the experience. There are 15 lines that make out different shapes such as a whale and you can see all of them very clearly from the sky. The lines were first spotted in 1920 when commercial airlines began to fly across the Peruvian dessert.

Following our flight we headed off to see a pottery and gold mining demonstration which were both very informative. We then went onto the Chauchilla cemetery which was in the dessert where we saw 13 graves with mummies.

That evening we got on a night bus and headed to Arequipa. The journey took about 10hrs.

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