The Big Trip

The final day in Miraflores was spent attempting to immerse ourselves in some culture rather than patting ourselves on the back for breaking the cheap eats and drink benchmark set the previous day. Just outside of town is the pre-Inca ruin of Huaca Pucllana, an impressive pyramid where the locals used to partake in offerings and sacrifices. It´s undergoing some restoration at the moment but gives a pretty impressive idea of how it used to look back in the day.

The whole country has gone Copa America mad at the moment and we were lucky enough to see Peru play local rivals Bolivia just before we left town - finished at 2 a piece but we were way more interested in watching the fans go nuts. Goooooooooooooooooool!!

We arrived at the bus station with plenty of time to spare the next day, partly to make sure there was no chance of us missing the bus and and also to make sure we didn´t have to spend another night in Lima ... We booked a pretty cushy bus to take us the four hours down the coast - cost us about 8 quid but was well worth it for the reclining seats alone!

Rocked up to our next stop, Pisco, just before it got dark and was a bit taken aback when we were told that it was our stop. The place itself looked quite ropey to say the least but we found it was a bit a of a grower once we saw it basked in sunshine the following day. I´m pleased to say the million stray dogs have been quite friendly so far as well!

Booked ourselves straight onto a tour of the Ballesta Islands with penguins, sealions and dolphins galore - the Islands are also absolutely covered with different types of birds, most of them known as ´Boobys´ which delighted the male section of the boat no end. Spent the afternoon touring the Paracas National Reserve, the driest part of Peru and second only to the Atacama Desert in Chile. The views over the sea were awesome and once we actually bring the camera cable out with us, they´ll be some photos to boot.

A big seal ... !

The ´Cathedral´at Paracas National Reserve


Silly me forgot that deserts actually get quite hot, even though it´s ´winter´ so Rich and I are now sporting excellent matching sunburnt noses!

Hopped on the bus to Nazca after planning our escape route with the help of some Americans who also wanted out of Pisco - Nazca is absolutely my favourite town so far, would love to stay a couple more days if only we had the time. Everyone comes to here to ´fly the lines´ so we duly booked and were taken to the airstrip for another early morning ... Rich had to practically drag me onto the Cessna that was taking six of us over, was okay once we got going as the plane was more sturdy than it looked! Did some nifty tuns mid-air so both sides of the plane can cop a good view. This didnt go down too well with Rich who lurched for the sick bag ...

The bad boy that took us up!

Rich dons the aviators specially for the occasion!

It´s amazing how clear the lines are though, massive outlines of animals and birds etched in the ground - the hummingbird and astronaut were clear favourites. The lines were created by the Nazca between 200 BC and 800 AD and unless you´re in the air it´s apparently pretty hard to actually see what they are - makes for lots of excellent conspiracy theories involving aliens and UFO´s!

The Hummingbird

Definitely getting into the swing of things now and think we´re firmly on the Gringo trail as we keep bumping into the same people on buses and tours! Anyhow, we´ve got another 6 hours to kill before the overnight bus takes us to Arequipa - might have to keep sampling the local brew, Cristal (sadly not the champagne) until then!

Phew - we finally made it to Lima after a bumpy and long journey from Miami. After a taxi ride playing chicken with other cars we arrived at the hotel which, according to the taxi guy, wasn´t in the best of areas and we were not to walk anywhere in the dark under any circumstances. Ace.

Turns out it wasn´t so bad and we headed to the local market on Sunday - the BBQ´d guinea pigs on weren´t tempting us although give it a few weeks and you never know ...

Traffic is absolute madness and you dice with death everytime you cross the road - a beeping horn is as much notice as you get before you have leg it! There´s also a permanent mist (garúa) that covers the City duing most of the year and it makes for a pretty damp atmosphere and plays havoc with the hair. I´m currently sporting a massive barnet.

Spent a couple of days downtown and realised that there isn´t much to keep you entertained save for a few churches and museums. Lima Cathedral is pretty spectacular inside though - we did seem to be the only tourists doing the rounds from what we could see.

View from the hotel

Had a hour to kill before the bus to Miraflores on the coast so decided to pop into the Museum of Italian Art as it only cost 60p. It consisted of two rooms and about eight paintings all of which looked like they´d been nicked fom someone´s loft. We managed in total to kill about 12 minutes.

Miraflores dos the trick in terms of bars and places to eat so has satisfied us in the food and drink stakes over the past couple of days. Only problem now is that the buses down the coast are full so we´re stuck here until Thursday afternoon. Am slightly scared that we´ll end up here for the whole year!

Not spied many other travellers here either apart from a few holidaying Americans - Lonely Planets recommndation of a hostel "in the beating heart of Miraflores" and "jam-packed" are slightly off the mark. Only people we´ve seen in the hostel are two chain smoking girls who watch dvds all day and a geezer who spends hours on the one computer with dial-up web access. They enticed us in with promise of free internet as well. Gutted!

We´re itching to leave Lima now - the Limeños are all really friendly though and are tolerating our current lack of Spanish, which hopefully we´ll sort out after hitting Spanish school in a few weeks.

Next stop Nazca via Pisco.