Peru part two - Arequipa to Cuzco

After Nazca we went to Arequipa, a really beautiful old town, with lots of old white houses. We spent a couple of days there, visiting churches and museums and eating good food. I tried Guinea Pig! It does actually taste a bit like chicken, I quite liked it.

Then we went to the Colca Canyon, which is the deepest canyon in the world. We stayed in a little village near Colca town, a really nice countryside place next to some tall mountains. We did a hike on the first day to acclimatize our bodies as we were at about 3800 meters. It was quite exhausting, but I just told myself "just keep swimming, just keep swimming" and it helped :)
The next day we went to the actual canyon which was really stunning, it´s so deep, and the walls are so steep! We saw about 10-15 Condors which were really cool, they are huge birds, about 3 meters wingspan. One of them came really close, and passed just a few meters above us. Cool!
In the evening we went to some hotsprings and had dinner at a restaurant where they played traditional Peruvian music and performed dances for us.

Spent a day in Arequipa before getting a nightbus to Cuzco. I really like Cuzco, even though it´s quite touristy. There was a festival going on so lots of people in the streets, prosessions and dances and fun. Spent the day wondering around markets, and visiting a convent with some old Inka-ruins in it. In the evening there was a concert and dances in the main square, and some great fireworks at the end!
The next day I went on a guided tour of the Sacred Valley, where we visited two different Inka ruin sites. They were both quite impressive. The last stop was an old church with beautiful paintings in the roof and on the walls, and lots of gold. A bit weird to find such a decorated church in a little town in the middle of nowhere! Came back to Cuzco and went to dinner at an English pub, before we had to pack for the Lares trek.

Peru part one - Lima to Nazca

I´m travelling again! This time doing a trip from Lima down to La Paz. I started off in Lima with a daytour of the city and the Pachacamac (?) ruins. Lima is an okey city, not as bad as I thought it would be. I stayed in a hotel in Barranco, about 20 mins from downtown. On the citytour we visited Barranco, Miraflores and the downtown area, saw a few parks, lots of beautiful colonial style houses in lots of different colours, and the San Fransisco church with the catacombs underneath.
I met up with the group later that evening, they all seem very nice. Mostly English people, a couple of Germans, a couple of Canadians, a Kiwi and an Aussie. I´m sharing a room with Maxa, one of the Canadian girls.

The next day we headed down to Pisco where we spent the night, and the next morning we went on a speedboat trip to the Ballestas Islands. They were quite amazing, thousands of birds (mostly Cormorants and Peruvian Boobies, and some pelikans), sealions and penguins. After that we visited a Pisco factory, where we were shown how they make Pisco, which is the Peruvian spirit. We also got to taste quite a few different varieties...
In the afternoon we headed down to Ica where we had lunch, I tried a classic Peruvian dish, Ceviche. Ceviche is basically raw fish marinated in lime and onions, served with sweet potato, normal potato and corn. Quite good actually! Then it was time for sandboarding! You wouldn´t believe it, but Peru has some of the biggest sanddunes in the world! We drove around them in a buggy which was so much fun! It was like being on a rollercoaster :) And the sandboarding was great also, we slid down huge dunes on a board that looked like a snowboard, face first on our stomach. Great fun!

Next stop was Nazca, where we went up in tiny 6-seater Cessna planes, to get a good wiew of the Nazca-lines. Nobody knows who made the lines, what they mean or why they are there, and they depict a lot of figures only visible from the air. Fascinating! We all felt a bit sick after the flight, so it was nice to just chill by the pool the rest of the afternoon. In the evening we went to a traditional Pachamanca seremony where we got served amazing food cooked underground.

More to come!