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!

Roadtrippin

It was very sad leaving Sydney and WakeUp, a few tears were shed as I said goodbye to all the lovely people there. But my three months were up, so it was time to go! I had a weeks holiday before it was time to return to real life in Norway, so my friend Jack and I flew over to Perth where we were to start our roadtrip.

I met Jack on my Kathmandu to Beijing trip with Dragoman last year, and he'd been staying with me in Sydney for about a month. In Perth we met up with John from the Drago trip aswell, and it was great to have a little reunion! We had the weekend in Perth before picking up the van on Monday, so we spent the days watching the RedBull Airrace which was great fun, and doing some sightseeing. How those pilots can fly! Wow.

On Monday we picket up our HiTop camper and set off, destination Exmouth! Western Australia is really beautiful, although some parts can get a bit boring with all the long streches of straight road. But there are some nice beaches, and we stopped several times for an afternoon swim. The first night we camped by a beach which was really nice, and got a good nights sleep after some spaghetti bolognaise and wine. The next day was our major driving day, we did about 800 km! It was a long day, but our cruise speed was about 120 km/h so it wasn't too many hours. Not far from Exmouth we stopped at Coral Bay, which is one of the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen! We went for a swim in the crystal clear warm water before driving the last bit up to Exmouth. About 110 km away I realized we didn't have a lot of petrol left and there were no petrolstations before Exmouth. 50 km away the lamp came on... It was pretty nervewrecking! So for the last 50 km I was gassing, cluthcing and rolling, gassing... We rolled into the petrolstation in Exmouth and filled 60,2 liters on the 60 litre tank... Phew!!!

The next morning I was picked up early as I was going out snorkelling with whalesharks!! First we snorkelled at a good reefsite at the Ningaloo reef before we went looking for the sharks. After about 15 minutes we found one! But he wasn't very social, so not long after we got into the water he dived. Luckily we found 4 others who were a bit more friendly! It was amazing swimming with them, the largest one was about 6 meters long! They are the biggest fish in the sea, so they won't move for anything, something I kinda realized when I went in the water to swim with one and didn't see it at first, turned around and it was right in front of me coming straight towards me! Help?
We spent about 5 hours cruising around and swimming with the different sharks before heading home, finishing off with a glass of champagne. A wonderful experience I would recommend to everyone!

We started our drive back to Perth in the afternoon. On the way back down the coast we almost killed a kangaroo (or it almost committed suicide by jumping out into the road in front of our van), saw a stingray and what we think were dugongs from a lookout, went to Monkey Mia but didn't see any dolphins, went to Shell Beach which is as you guessed a beach made of shells instead of sand, saw some amazing sunsets and visited the pinnacles which is a strange desert area with pinnacle rocks sticking out of the ground.

3160 km later we arrived back in Perth on Saturday, dropped off the van, spent the rest of the afternoon in Freemantle before Jack and John dropped me off at the airport. 30 hours later I was back in Norway! It's good to be home, but I miss the warmth...

Sydney update # 2

I've meant to update so many times, but I never seem to have the time!!! Only a week left in Sydney now, then a week in Perth and then home to Trondheim. I don't want to go home, but I don't want to stay here either if that makes sense... I am looking forward to getting home to family, friends and my own flat though.

I'll start from where I last left off and try to recap from there. Mardi Gras was great fun! About 3 hours of loads of gay and lesbians parading the streets, in everything from lifesaver speedos to full on Thai "ladyboys" in flamboyant dresses, "Dykes on bikes", singing, dancing, people in leather thongs whipping each other and more "normally" dressed people just having a good time. It's one of the biggest events in Sydney so a LOT of people in the streets!

In conjunction with the Mardi Gras Spencer Tunick came and did an installation in front of the Opera House. Guess who was there? Yep! Together with 5200 other people at 4 am a cold Monday morning. A bit of waiting around before we stripped off just after 6 am when the sun came up. It was a weird experience being naked with so many other people, but at the same time very liberating and fun! Everyone was in a good mood, cheering and waving to the ferries going past. There were people of all shapes and sizes, even one man with his whole body covered in tattoos, and I mean ALL of it (apart from his head), and he even had piercings in his you know what!! Weird... After the outside session we filled up one of the concert halls and had a photo shoot inside. Kinda strange having naked people sitting on each and every seat in the hall and lying on the stage. And don't worry, we got plastic bags to sit on...

I went on a daytrip down to Jervis Bay, a beautiful place a couple of hours drive from Sydney, where we visited a beatiful beach, went on a dolphinwatching cruise (saw 3 dolphins and a couple of sealions), and stopped by a huge waterfall in Kangaroo Valley on the way home.

The weekend after I went on a surfcamp! Mojosurf took me up to Cresent Head, a really nice place about 6 hours north of Sydney, with a beautiful deserted looong beach and lush forests. The camp was 5 mins walk from the beach, and it was really nice. There were a lot of very loud obnoxious Americans on the trip which wasn't that nice... But I made friends with the other 10 "non-Americans" so we stuck together and had a good time. And the surprising bit is: I stood up on a surfboard! On my first try!!! I was so surprised I fell off... Last time I went surfing I just gave up, I couldn't do it at all. I thought I would go up and check out the camp and just relax on the beach for the weekend, but I had to have one lesson as I promised Ronnie (Mojoguy), but I actually ended up having all three of them. So now I'm a pro! haha...

I've also been out a few times with the crew here, one restaurant we went to was a Brazilian barbeque one where you could eat as much as you wanted, and we eat! The food was delicious, and everyone rolled out afterwards...

A couple of weeks ago I went horseriding with Louise in a place called Glenworth Valley, about an hour from Sydney. We had booked to go out for 6 hours, but we gave up after about 4 as our legs, thighs and bums were so sore we could hardly walk... But it was a really nice day, we rode through lovely lush rainforest, the horses were great and the sun was shining.

My Dad, stepmum and brother has been visiting for the past 10 days, so been doing lots of touristy stuff around Sydney with them. Visiting The Rocks, been to see La Traviata in the Opera house, dinner with more family living here, climbing the Harbour Bridge pylon, Taronga Zoo, Darling Harbour and so on. We also hired a car and drove up to Port Stephens for a couple of days, a beautiful place a couple of hours north. If you ever come to Australia, go there! We stayed at Melaleuca backpackers, they have dorms, cabins and tents set in a campground/forest 5 minutes walk from the beach, with their own pet kangaroo named Josie jumping around. One of the mornings there was even a wild koala climbing up the tree right next to our balcony! Of course I was in the shower so I didn't see it... We spent the days hanging out at the beaches, going for walks and eating good food. On the way back to Sydney we drove through Hunter Valley which is a famous wine district, and we stopped at Mt.Pleasent, Lindemans and Rosemount vinyards.

Sorry for the way to long entry, I'm impressed if you've made it this far without falling asleep...