We left Arequipa early on the 29th of March with a promise of an 11 hour truck ride. We got to a campsite in Nasca and set up camp for the night. The next morning some of our tour buddies went on a flight to see all the famous Nasca lines and pictures. We had tossed up whether we would do the flight but it was very expensive so decided not to do it. Also our tour company isn't allowed to recommend the flights as a small plane crashed there in February and killed all of the 9 passengers on board. The rest of us who didn't go had a lazy morning by the pool and after lunch packed up to head to Huacachina. We did stop on the way at a tower that allowed you to see a couple of the lines but it wasn't amazing.
Huacachia is a town built around an oasis (small natural lake) in the middle of the desert. And when we got there boy did our adventures start! We arrived about 4pm and after buying beer and ice from a local restaurant for the trip got into our dune buggy's... Racing car looking things with a big cage around them seating 9 people. Then off we went into the desert. Some of the sand dunes were massive and very steep and there weren't a shortage of "catch your breathe" moments. It was like a rollercoaster without the security that the car wasn't going to slip out from under you. VERY FUN!
We stopped about 5 times on this crazy ride to go sandboarding. Alex hired a more advanced method of going down the dunes... like a snowboard, but I stuck with lying on my stomach... you go much faster! I don't know if there are many pictures of this as we were having too much fun to snap a lot.
We got to our campsite (a sheltered area at the bottom of a couple of sand dunes and a fire was going with our dinner sizzling on top. They handed around a lot of Pisco (not the nicest spirit ever) in the form of Pisco sour, Pisco cola and Pisco as a shot with a squeeze of lemon. Between this and the beer we brought with us a few people were a tad tipsy to say the least... These people included Alex :-) He hadn't had *that* much to drink so I was surprised when he suddenly said he had to go to bed. I didn't know he was sick until I saw his silhouette up on yonder dune hunched over. Lets just say the sand got a good fertilizing that night, poor thing. I had a good night though, having wrestling wars on the dunes, sitting around the campfire and sleeping under the stars. By the morning needless to say we had sand *everywhere*! We left early for another dune buggy ride back to the village for breakfast. Then it was on the bus for an hour ride to the ocean where we went on a boat tour to Ballestas Islands, called "poor mans Galapagos". It was quite amazing seeing the masses of bird life and sea lions lazing about in the sun. We saw a few penguins and Alex still not feeling 100% fed the fish. Then it was a drive to Lima.
5 of our tour friends were leaving the tour at this point so we all went out for a night of bowling. Alex did very well but I did not, lots of fun though!
After a big couple of days (it's amazing looking back to think we did all this in such a short period of time) we had a couple of days to relax in Lima. Yesterday we walked around the city and had a lazy afternoon. Went out for birthday drinks and cake for Lorna, one of the girls on our tour. Today we went to a museum about the Spanish Inquisition but couldn't understand the Spanish guide or the Spanish writing explaining the pictures so we were out of there pretty quickly. It's Good Friday so there were masses of people in the main square going to church. We also watched the change of the guard outside the parliament palace (yes palace) which I can only gather is a very silly tradition where they walk around playing music and doing walks from the Ministry of Silly Walks just to change over who guards the building... Strange. Tonight will be a night in I think and tomorrow we head off to the beach for a few days and then Ecuador... But we'll tell you about that when we get there.
We hope you have a great Easter weekend. I for one am missing family and friends and wish I could just pop back for the weekend... Oh well, I really can't complain can I?
Much love
Danika
Most of the view on our 11 hour truck day.
View of "the hand" from the Nasca tower.
Dune buggy's!
Our tour group
Alex sandboardng
We sat on the dunes and watched a gorgeous sunset
Ballestas Islands
Penguins!
Crabs on the Island
Daddy sea lion with mummy sea lions (one male has around 25 females!)
Changing of the guard
Inside the Cathedral
Lima square
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