Peru

We arrived in Peru via a couple of bus journies to the boarder town with Brazil, only to find that there were no buses into Peru from here (or so the taxi driver and his mates told us). So we ended up getting into his taxi and after 5 hours driving on roads that were being built as we drove on them and a boat crossing, we ended up in Puerto Maldonado, a smallish town in the Peruvian Amazon. The route we chose to cross from Brazil into Peru, is not an obvious one and not one that we´ve met anyone else who´s tried.

From here we flew to Lima, where we were surprised to find that it´s cold and have had to get used to the feel of socks and boots after 2 months of flip flops. In Lima our hotel was a converted old colonial house and was like staying in a mansion, with marble statues and elaborate decorations along the corridors. Our room wasn´t so grand - probably the servant quarters.

Didn´t get to see much in Lima as the Presidents of all the South American countries were in town and when the streets surrounding their offices weren´t closed preventing us from getting anywhere, they were visiting the local museums and sights and so they were closed. We did get to see round the catacombes beneath one of the churches, where the archaeologists who excavated them have arranged them in strange circle shapes, with the skulls in the middle??

From Lima we got the bus to Pisco, where we were served hot coffee on board by the poor hostess who had to carry them down the isle while the bus continued to bounce along the bumpy roads. In Pisco we took a boat trip to a nearby island and saw Penguins - the first time we´ve seen penguins in the wild and very exciting. There were lots of other birds too, including boobies (tee hee) and seals and we were advised to wear hats to protect ourselves from the white bombs they were dropping. Dan got hit twice! We saw bottlenosed dolphins on the way back, who came right out of the water to have a look at us. They also make Pisco (a white grape brandy) round here, which we treated ourselves to a bottle of and goes quite well with sprite.

One of the most popular drinks here is Inca cola, which is Perus take on cola, but bright yellow!

From Pisco we took another bus to Huacachina, a small desert oasis town where we´ve been sand boarding. We took a dune buggy (driver included) which raced up and down the dunes and was far from the sedate drive we were expecting to our sand boarding site. Dan got the hang of it quite quickly and managed quite a steep slope until he stacked it right at the end and got a face full of sand. I stuck to the safer belly and bottom strategies, which was a lot of fun. Some of the most fun we´ve had!

This afternoon we get a bus to Nazca, where wé plan to fly over the Nazca lines.

We´ve hired a camper van to spend our three weeks in New Zealand in and are hoping the heater works as it´ll be winter there.