We're in Peru!

We made it to Peru and so far, so good!  We've managed to do quite a bit since arriving in Lima early Sunday morning.  First, we left Lima and took a 4 hour bus ride south to a town called Ica.  In this part of Peru, there is desert everywhere and located about 3 miles outside of Ica is town called Huacachina, where there is an oasis in the middle of the desert.  We arrived and our taxi driver dropped us off at a hotel that we decided looked good and safe enough to stay at.  It also had a pool, which was nice since we were in the desert.  Surrounding this lagoon is a boardwalk with shops and restaurants and there are also HUGE sand dunes everywhere.  Children swim in the lagoon and you can also take out paddle boats.  It's definitely a very unique place worth visiting and I haven't even gotten to the really good part!  Since there are these huge sand dunes, they have dune buggie and sand boarding trips out in the desert.  We had an absolute blast!  We hopped in a dune buggie with a couple other tourists and our driver (tourist aren't aloud to drive, just ride) and took to the sand!  It was truly like being on a roller coaster.  We'd ride aroud and then the driver would stop at the top of a huge sand dune, get out the sand boards, and we'd all take our turns getting on our bellies on the board and then soar down the dune! .

The beautiful Sechura Desert of western Peru - this is where the dune buggies and sandboarding

happened!

 

In our dune buggie, ready to go!

Video Footage Links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OixzjWThJrU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7h4_wCQgOE

On Monday, we went on a nature excursion about an hour away from Ica, in Paracas.  Paracas is a town on the coast and there are uninhabited islands off the coast called the Islas Ballestas, which are considered to be the Peruvian Galapogos.  The islands took about 30 minutes to get to by boat and we went with a tour group.  Upon reaching the islands, there were birds everywhere and all different types of species.  My favorite were the Humboldt penquins and Scott's were the pelicans.  There were also hundreds of sea lions hanging out on these island and they are ridiculously noisy! Some of them would even pose for us.  We rode around the islands on the boat for a while then headed back to shore and along the way saw many packs of dolphins swimming.  After that we went back to where we were staying in Huacachina near the oasis.

The next day we said goodbye to the sand dunes and oasis and caught a bus, again heading south.  The bus ride was only 2 hours and took us to a town called Nazca.  This town is famous for what are known as the 'Nazca Lines'.  These lines are etched in the sand and form drawnings of things such as a monkey, hummingbird, dog, spider, alien looking man, etc.  What makes these lines even more peculiar is that no one knows how they got there or why and they apparently arrived more than a millenium ago.  There are at least 10,000 lines and 300 different figures and are large sizes ranging from 46-235 meters.  The only way to really view the lines is from the sky, so we chartered a plane with 3 other tourists for a 30 minute ride over the desert to take a look!  They really are an unusual site and you can clearly see what the objects are in the sand. 

Monkey with a curled tail (spans 55 meters)

Hummingbird (spans 50 meters)

After Nasca, we hit the road again and caught another bus.  This time the bus ride was about 9 hours and our destination was further south along the coast to the 2nd largest city in Peru, Arequipa.  It is known as one of the more beautiful cities in Peru. It has many historic mansions and churches, which are mostly made of volcanic stone, called sillar.  Arequipa is surrounded by 3 volcanic peaks, which are all around 20,000 ft high.  They also are known for their Alpaca clothing products, which is very, very soft wool (see picture of an Alpaca to right).  We arrived around 11 pm and went straight to the hotel.  Today (Wednesday) we took time to plan out the next few days and also toured around the city.  We went to the main city center, the 'Plaza de Armas', and explored the area for awhile, then we went to the Monasterio de Santa Cantalina. This tour of the convent, founded in 1579, was quite educational and very interesting.  It was kind of like its own village within the city and kept quiet from the world until 1972 when the city forced more modern infrastructure and opened the doors to tourists.  There are about 30 nuns that currently live there.   We ended our day with a delicious dinner at a restaurant called 'ZigZag'.  This restaurant is a Swiss/Peru (Alpine/Andean) fusion of foods that specializes in stone cooked meats and boy was there a lot of meat!  We had the chance to try out some new meats, alpaca and ostrich.  The alpaca was a bit gamey tasting, but we both agree that ostrich was outstanding. Two thumbs up from the both us!

 

The Plaza de Armas in Arequipa

Our plans for going to Machu Picchu are out due to the recent landslides from the heavy rains towards the end of January.  They had to evacuate ~3,900 tourists and both the train and trails are closed that go up
to Machu Picchu.  What a bummer!  Luckily there are plenty of other things we can do in Peru and we have the flexibility to make some changes in our plans.  So long for now.  We'll update you again over the weekend or early next week.