Week two and a day

So since the last email really not much has happened, so to compensate I seem to have written twice as much.The flight over the Nasca lines actually happened, which was nice.There was just myself and Sam on the plane (and the pilot) and the routine seemed to be overflying each animal (sometimes as accurately described as star constellations tend to be) on one side, then spinning the plane around as sharply as possible for the other person to get an eyeful. The pilot muttered his full English vocabulary of´look down, look down, look down, look down´ over each animal to each of us and only finished his banking when he heard a camera shutter. Instead of appreciating the overall spectacle it was more a mix of looking through a camera lense and glancing at the sick bag. At least later we found the new sport of ´spot the intended purpose of the photo´.

Then followed the luxury overnight coach to Arequipa. It was quite luxurious - though it had the suspension of a large american sedan where the driver appeared to believe he was behind the wheel of a sporty two seater. Anything not buckled in via five point harness at some stage during the night came loose and fell down or raced away down the aisle. Arequipa was nice, second only to Cusco (blah blah) in terms ofcolonial architecture it has a big square, large fountain, big archytype colonnades etc and some large volcanoes as a backdrop. Our room (with balcony and bathroom) was a fiver - and proved a good spot to get ill.

Clearly I have the constitution of a school girl.In an absent minded moment I must have ordered a large round balloon suppository and suddenly I became el bloaty trapped wind person. Sam popped out to the farmacia and after some anonymous drugs and some R&R I started a much needed breeze (two days later).

My worst nightmare would have been to be Senior Bloaty and find myself sitting on the back seats of a local bus as it speeded along unmade unmade roads for four hours to the little town of Chivay. Lunar landscapes, llamas, dust, ice and amusingly large rocks and pot holes on the`road`. Happily the day before this happened I´d been able to vex the dogs of Arequipa by overriding their subtle territorial scents on each and every street corner by my own very noxious fumes.

I read on the internet later that trapped wind can be a byproduct of stress, irregular food patterns, waist band too tight etc. ReluctantlyI´ve eased my money belt slightly from it´s vice like hold.

Chivay is at 3,800 metres, so as we hurried after Mr Hostel tout person at midday with rucksacks there was a little wheezing. The hostel was nice (at 80 pence each for the night), their three course meal (one pound eighty each) was the nicest yet - stuffed avocado starter with tasty llama steak for main (sorry mum). It´s a tiny and quiet town, but it´s at the start of the worlds deepest (blah blah) canyon - I think they said twice the depth of the Grand Canyon (some may say half as impressive). We arrived at the highest point at 7am the next day (early morning bus) and turned to ice immediately. Below there were plenty of the promised condors rising allegedly on early morning thermals. (Had I still been coming off my el Bloaty I could have given them some serious altitude)!!

We sat for about two hours taking identical pictures of condors. Why is it that it´s important to get your own photo - though you know full well you could just download a much better one from the internet. After a while it was quite nice to just sit and watch (only taking the occasional photo every thirty seconds). Back from Chivay and back in Arequipa and another night bus to Cusco. But first a delicious chocolate ice-cream in the main plaza. Hmmm delicious. As we both put one foot on the coach there was a slight raised eyebrow, as both feet were on the coach we knew something was wrong.

Five hours later, me having gained the extreme wrath of el conductor for misuse of the coach facilities and Sam in excruciating pain,uncontrollable shivers and a replete with a small amount of my also misusing the general facilities in the immediate vicinity of my seat we alighted the bus early, at 1am, in the worlds most unpleasant town- Juliaca.

A transport hub town only and with a transient population of druggies and nasties we were very happy to find the salubrious(three pounds a night) San Antonio Hotel. While Sam was keen to warm up under six blankets I set to work on the facilities - ensuring no space in the banù felt under used.The next day was a cheap day, just two pounds spent on ten litres ofwater and the cost of the sicknote room. Ten litres of water represented our thirst in the morning - not what was realistic to drink.

Fortunately with the violence of the event it was over quickly too, so the next day we set off on the five remaining blissfully uneventful hours to Cusco. We´ve been here a day and a half now, and haven´t touched any ice-cream. (The suspicion of ice-cream was it was the only thing we both ate, a little defrost and refreeze action we think).

Cusco seems ... nice. We stayed in a shockingly expensive room on the first night (twenty pounds)!!!! but as Sam didn´t sleep well I reluctantly suggested something more to that that we have become accustomed. Our place this evening has character. Tomorrow we`ve venturing down the Sacred Valley. Every footstep we take closer to Machu Picchu the Peruvian tourist board are on hand to charge us a randomly selected amount of US dollars. They`re cashing in in unabashed style on the biggest tourist attracting in SA. By taking local buses as far as we can, then joining a large queue ofcheapskates, we can get a return train for $40 each, the Machu Picchu pass costs $20 each and all the inevitable extra paraphernalia ....but I`m sure it`ll be worth it. Anyhow ... cheers for now

Day Five

It`s the moon .... interesting?


The sand dunes from the dune buggy.
Huacachina


Day five .. not sure I´ll be able to keep up a day count for too much longer though, you know how hard it is to recall individual days past the number of fingers on two hands.

Anyway, Ica may well be the last place in Peru we go to which isn´t tailored to the tourist market. As soon as we got to Huacachina then all the hustle and bustle was gone, it was very quiet and peaceful. The prices were suddenly correspondingly higher but hey. The initial impression was lovely, an oasis surrounded by large sand dunes etc. After walking around the lake several times and venturing up a smaller sand dune (one step up, 90% of a step back down) then you quickly realise you´ve ticked most of the boxes the place has to offer. Perhaps we´ll lose the rush rush mentality of the two week holidaymaker ... but then probably not.

The hostel (a hotel with less than 50 rooms is a hostel) was full of scary ´dude´ like backpackers all looking individually identical, these were the hardcore backpackers that seemed to be settled in for six months or so and seemed to spend days not selling jewellery on the pavement etc. It was a relief to find some Aussies for some normal humour and conversation (and the only other backpackers so far who can´t speak Spanish like a native). On the Wednesday we did nothing much, on Thursday we went on a dune buggy and sandboard trip for two hours.

The sandboarding was fun .. it´s as scary as you want it to be as, as soon as you start getting out of control or too fast, you can crash without consequence. The braver few got out of control and stayed upright and consequentially got a round of applause for the drama of the inevitable wipeout. The slopes weren`t the as they were pretty dramatic, but it was all good.

The dune buggying was excellent. Where there´s no preoccupation withhealth and safety then there´s always a little extra edge and thethree buggy drivers just seemed to be making it up a bit and having alaugh. The routes they took were all quite standard (from the tracks that were still there) but it was the danger that we´d be driving straight into each other at good speeds over the blind vertical drops that was most interesting.

We left Huacanchina immediately after the above (still emptying sand from everywhere) back to Ica then onto a local bus to Nazca, which is where we are now. I´m not sure if we´ll be flying over the lines, it´s$45 each which, with the good exchange rate, is manageable. I´m not sure we will courtesy of all the dodgy scam tour organisers, so although we´ve put down some money already (for reservation etc) then we´ll see whether we ever see that tour organiser or the flight again. I´m hopeful still, but if not we´ll have to trash the hotel room in petty revenge!

We have a night bus outta here on Saturday night to Arequipa. Hopefully this route will make sense, but only so long as the Bolivian border is open when we get there. At the moment it´s still shut apparently, but getting better all the time. Arequipa is close to the home of ´the worlds deepest canyon´ (blah blah) and there are definite sightings of condors circling (at 1130 each day in time for the tourist bus and so long as Pedro can wave the daily meat around in time (cynical allegations)). Arequipa is in a beautiful valley at the foot of El Misti volcano - a snow capped perfect cone (it says in the book). It´s another world cultural heritage UNESCO something or other so it should be nice and there are a few things to do it seems.The plan so far is to train it from Arequipa to Cusco, and by doing this route we cut down on the 14hr bus journeys we could otherwise be facing (to Arequipa is just the nine hours, but it´s on a luxury bus so should be OK).

We´ve met sufficient people now to believe that Peru is OK but expensive and a little hard work, Bolivia is really cheap and not hardwork at all (just the downside of the small revolt and closed borders), Argentina is everyones favourite (or perhaps only second to Bolivia) place and also very cheap, Chile is very pretty but the most expensive. No (insert hyphen here) one has been to Uruguay that we´ve spoken to, so we may have to form an opinion of our own.

Damn, just ticked over the hour. That´s another seventeen pence down. Para hoy, we´ll pop to see some rarified mummies at the museum, and this afternoon we´re off to a planetarium where afterwards they´ve got some ´sophisticated´ telescopes where we can gaze at planets. Tomorrow morning we hope to be in a small aeroplane looking at tenuous ´lines´of birds etc with a boss eyed pilot (who was wheeled in for credibility).

Around the world in 40 weeks (blah blah)

Street crime is a problem in South America!










At last made it on holiday, and am sitting in a booth in Click.com (Ica) 'el lugar ideal para ti' apparently. And because I´m on the internet I can translate that means the perfect place to be. Wish I´d done just a little more Spanish before coming out, but with Sam´s help I´m sure I´ll be right there by 27th Oct (flying out day). Had a surprise at first when we read the conversion rate the wrong way around ... the cash machine didn´t have an exchange rate and we thought one Peruvian splat equals three point something US dollars. I think the taxi drivers etc must have thought we were just a little too excited in our face of outrage and walking away negotiating techniques. Although suspecting for a while that our dinner last night didn´t cost 12 pounds and our somewhat nasty accommodation (we were feeling poor at the time) wasn´t 15 pounds it´s only now on the internet when we got the actual exchange rate.

So last nights dinner was under two pounds and the accomm was just three pounds forty. Phew. Anyway - the prebooked hotel in Lima on Monday night was lovely (Jacuzzi, seven foot wide bed, very nice breakfast in the morning (and later that day courtesy of big pockets). Lima itself though, as widely informed, is an armpit. It has the constant noise, fumes, smog, noise and general nothing-going-for-itness that we were expecting. Yesterday therefore we came down the coast to Ica, just a four hour coach journey (three pounds each - not forty five). Just seven hours later we arrived and ditched the plan to go on in favour of sleep. Ica is OK, a mini version of constant noise, fumes, smog, noise but with somethings going for it. Standard plaza´s and churches etc. As a reward for all our hard travelling we´re off to Huacachina, this is

´Surrounded by dunes, palm trees and huarangos, small tropical American trees (Caesalpina coriaria); the Lagoon of Huacachina appears Ica. In olden times, the lagoon became famous among the residents due to the medicinal properties of its filtered waters. Today it is apeaceful resort which is ideal to take a rest and enjoy thelandscape´.

The book says highest sand dunes in the world (blah blah) and there are lots of places hiring sand boards for a bit of highspeed suicide which we´ll clearly have to do! Anyway - day two effectively, and hopefully we´ve got past the stage of complete stupidity that takes effect when you´re suddenly jumped into alien places (I´m sure I gave a taxi man the agreed $5 dollars, but now I think he only asked for 5 local splats) - it´s the stuff of cold sweats and nightmares.

Speaking of the weather, winter here is warmer than summer in UK. We´ve yet to hit the altitude places though (highest everything in the world (blah blah blah)). Righto - so everything is OK and just four months and eleven days to go in S.A., think I´d better check on the status of that revolution in Bolivia now. Adios.