Advertisement
Published: October 24th 2014
Edit Blog Post
So the past week and a half Ive been visiting the best the coast of Peru has to offer, enjoying the sunny weather, seafood and the odd swim! Four days in Arequipa, three travelling via Nazca, Hachachina, Pisco and Paracas and another three in the capital city Lima.
AREQUIPA
Arequipa is considered possibly Perus nicest city with many travellers coming here to spend extended periods of time. I stayed in the excellent Arequipay backpackers while here, very friendly place. My first day just involved getting to know the city and the sights and doing some walking around myself. Day two I had to be up at 2.30AM to catch a 3.00AM bus to the famous Colca Canyon, the deepest caynon in the world. However a little bus breakdown meant it was closer to 4.00 before we left, could have been a valuable extra hour in bed! :/ The big attraction with the canyon is the Condor bird, the second biggest in the world with wing spans of up to 12 feet.. however due to our bus malfunction we missed seeing them despie waiting in hope for an hour. They like to hunt at the break of dawn
which was why we needed to be there early! Following day I visited the amazing convent de St Catharina with a Urguayan girl I meet in the hostel (having someone to snap pics of you is handy, me and selfies dont go well together! ) The convent required quite a large fee to become a nun so only the girls from the richest families could attend and each nun had up to four servants. The thing I liked about the convent was instead of your typical boring religious stuff there was pretty alternative designs and arts with each nuns living quarters different in shape and size from the next. Some had big couches, others had interesting art work and others just had a pallet to sleep on! (See pics) Later I also did the free walking tour of Arequipa just amongst other things involved a visit to a hidden llama farm right in the middle of the city. The last day I travelled to the outskirts of Arequipa to do some white water rafting - pretty good but the hour on the water flew by !
PERU HOP
To get to Lima I decided to travel
with the Irish owned bus company Peru hop as theres some worthwhile sights to see between the two cities. The first day was alot of travelling but we took some time out to visit the Nazca lines. Created 5000 years ago, nobody knew these existed till the airplane was invented and people flying over Nazca one day found drawings in the sand so big, they could only be seen from the sky. The following day after a trip to Pisco to try a few samples of the different beverages the town is famous for, we tried for me what was one of the highlights of my trip´to date; Sand boarding on the massive sanddunes in Huachachina. Im not kidding, there was an oaois in the middle of the dessert and they built a road up to it to create the town - once you´re finished you drive out the road you came in! So that evening at 4 we all loaded into a sand buggy and went speeding up the dunes... That proved to be an experience in itself and seatbelt were a must.. Many of a time we´d slow coming to the top of a 100ft high dune, have
a second to look done at the massive drop before then going speeding down it! The boarding itself was really good aswell and you pick up alot of momentum though I had to leapt off at one stage as an idiot with a Go-Pro swerved into my path as he tried to video himself - not cool brah!
Last day we visited what have been called the poor mans Galapagos, the Ballastras Islands. Dolphins, sealions, penguins and thousands upon thousands of birds were all in evidence and we also discovered the interesting fact (or at least to me) that Peru has the second highest fish caught in the world after China due to the mixture of warm and cold currents off its coast.
LIMA
When booking accomodation in Lima I decided to try something different. I stayed in the apartment of our amazing host Marco with 6 other strangers. It obviously had a very homely feel to it as we sat in Marcos sitting room each night trying some of the drinks he would throw together though admitadly nothing compared to Mattie and Catherine Berneys level of hosting when they throw one of their famous
Yeah...
Dont fock with this angel! parties! Lima itself was massive (9m) ppl and I got lost more than once. I did the usual free walking tour but also visited a very interesting Park de Los Fountains where they create shows using lasers and the fountains they have there. One of the days we had a guy in his 40s approach us speaking first German and then English begging us to stop (Us being myself and my Peru Hop buddies Mick + Maree from Aus and Chris and Hannah from Southampton) He told us his bags and everything he had had been robbed from a taxi when he stupidly got out to check the back tyre minus his bun bag on the drivers insistence. Therefore he wanted us to give him money.. Sounded pretty suspiciuos don´t you think?! We grilled him for 15 minutes before deciding he was a naive, not so smart guy and gave him enough money and food to at least get him through the next two days while the embassy worked on reissuing him a new passport. Funnily he didnt want to ask any fellow Germans for assistance as he was too embarrassed - Germans ehh!! :D
MANCORA
Chilling in Mancora now which is a beach town near the Ecuador border. Weather is nice but I am very close to round house kick the next Peruvian who tries to sell me a pair of sunglasses or marijuana! PS Stayed in Loki hostel, good craic of a Friday and a few games of pool, table tennis and beer pong!
Flights to Galapagos Islands booked for Sunday morning for 16 days!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.164s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 13; qc: 61; dbt: 0.1137s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Dancing Dave
David Hooper
Hi!
Considering this pic of you was taken in a nunnery in Peru...its pretty cool. Great blog. You are obviously having a great time. Hope Galapagos is extra special. Enjoy.