Comme se llama

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We arrived into Lima not quite knowing what to expect as the Lonely Planet paints quite a dark picture of Lima with theft and pollution. However, once we were out of the airport and in our taxi, whilst there seemed to be lots of pollution, it all seemed safe. We were staying in Miraflores, where most of the backpackers stay. We were only intending to stay the one night so we checked into our hostel and went for a walk about Miraflores. There is a park in the middle of the district which was heaving with people. There seemed to be some sort of flower sale with lots of stalls and as we walked further on we discovered a mini amphitheatre where people were just dancing to salsa playing from a sound system. There were dozens of people watching but none of the dancers, whose abilities varied from proficient to something akin to dad dancing, seemed to be the least fazed. We took a stroll down to the sea front but it was really cold, much colder than we expected. We ended the night in a street that is nicknamed Pizza street because all the restaurants are oddly all pizzerias, not what we expected on our first night in Peru. We did have our first Pisco Sour though which was really good, as well as some real Peruvian food, avoiding the pizzas.

The next day we took a taxi out to the bus station on the outskirts of town to be informed that the next bus wasn´t for four hours to our next destination, Ica, down the coast from Lima. Four hours wait was made easier by being allowed into the brand new VIP suite with free internet, coffee and comfy seats. The bus we got on, to our surprise again, was equally as comfy, more like being on a plane, with a hostess, hot meals and drinks and seats that reclined almost flat. We arrived in Ica quite refreshed and took a little Tico taxi (the smallest cars we´ve ever seen with tiny lawn mower engines) to Huacachina. It was dark when we arrived and couldn´t see much so we opted to go for dinner and some drinks. The next day we woke to find that Huacachina was actaully an oasis in the desert surrounded by sand dunes. Unike anything we´ve ever seen. The hostel was offering sand buggy tours with sand boarding so we decided to book that for the afternoon. We spent a lazy morning relaxing by the lagoon. In the afternoon we took the sand buggy tour onto the sand dunes. This was amazing fun although we were glad we had had a light lunch as at times it was like being on a rollercoaster. The driver would tear up one dune and go nearly vertical over the other side. On the tour we stopped several times to do some sandboarding which basically invoved lying on a snowboard and siding down the sand dunes. The dunes we went down of course got bigger and closer to vertical every time we stopped. We started driving back just before sunset and stopped to watch sunset before heading back to Huacachina.

The next day was Tom´s birthday which was unfortunately spent hanging around waiting on our over night bus at 8.30pm to Cusco. Having waited all day we got to the bus station to be told that no buses were going to Cusco that night as there was a blockade just outside Cusco which was preventing all traffic from passing through. They told us that they coud not tell us how long it would go on so were to come back in the morning and try again. So, we headed back to Huacachina for another night. As it was Tom´s birthday we went out to celebrate and try to forget the hassle of not being abe to get the bus.

The following morning we again took a trip to the bus station to be told that the bus was not going that day either. Normally this would not have bothered us as we could just decide to go somewhere else but we had to be in Cusco by 25th to register for our trek. We decided to take a bus to Nazca and then try to get to Cusco from there the next day. This actually worked out well as we stayed one night and took a flight over the Nazca lines the next day.

The fight over the Nazca lines was good although a little disappointing as they are not as clear as they make them out to be in the pictures. The disappointment was not helped by having to wait in the tiniest airport, aka shack, for 3 hours before we could take our flight. We can´t even say that it was organised chaos in the airport as it was way beyond that. Basically he who shouts the loudest (or pays the most money) gets to fly first.

Four hours after leaving our hostel we returned to be told that our bus to Cusco would be going that night. Yippee! However, we had to wait until 11.30pm to get it. Boo! Of course when we arrived at the bus station for our bus at 11.30pm in typical Peruvian style it was an hour late. Needless to say that we collapsed into our seats when we finally got on and felll asleep for the 14 hr bus journey.

We arrived in Cusco around 2pm the next day and were met by a very nice little man from our hostel who took us by taxi to the hostel. Cusco is at 3300m above sea level and so the altitude can affect you which we soon discovered. We had two flights of stairs to climb to get to the hostel after the taxi had dropped us and we were both knackered and gasping for breath when we got there. Our hostel had amazing views all the way over the valley where Cusco is situated, which I guess was the reward for climbing all those steps. Our room had windows on two sides too which was brilliant, athough freezing cold at night. We were to spend the next couple of days relaxing and acclimatising to the altitude before our Inca Trail trek. We didn´t get up to much apart from wandering round the town. Cusco´s a nice town and bigger than we imagined. It was the first time on the trip where we´d had any hassle but all in good humour. Every street there were women offering "Massage amigo/amiga", not of the seedy kind but the post trek kind. Why when you´ve just said no to their friend 5m away they expect you to say yes to them we couldn´t understand. Also in the main square there are plenty of men selling paintings from folders, shoe shine boys and the younger finger puppet boys selling knitted puppets of everything from llama and alpaca to Shrek and our favourite, "mouse with cheese" (a grey mouse with some yellow wool sticking out of its mouth). There were also lots of women dressed up in traditional Peruvian clothes, normally with a real llama in tow and often what was supposed to be a llama baby in a sling around their waist. In reality the baby was obviously a lamb but they would sit there contentedly for hours in their sling like a human baby. Cusco has some nice buildings and churches but we could never understand the importance of the famous "12 sided stone", which is as it sounds, a 12 sided stone in a wall that´s really famous in Cusco. Next, our trek!

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Comments

[Mike & Angie]

Peru
Wonderful to see your pictures of Peru. A fantastic country for adventures. We had the same experience of waiting re the Nazca lines! Thanks for including us. Mike