10 August: Nazca to Arequipa

This morning we had a later start and went to the Chauchilla Cemetery. It was quite fascinating but, sadly was only found because the grave robbers got there first so the mummies weren't in as good a condition as I can only imagine they would've been - mostly they were just bones after being discarded in the desert heat. But it was still pretty damn awesome to see! All the mummies are in foetal positions and have been wrapped (which is how they were buried). Most of them are in what they assume are family groups and there are plenty of very young mummies too! Is amazing to see how well conserved their hair is too! And they had *very* long hair!!

It is also kinda surreal to me that it is all still out there wide-open (as opposed to having been relocated to a museum or something). There are large open grave excavations in the dry earth, with nothing more than a shade cover above them. Plus there were two more mummies that were in a museum room which were saw after walking thru the actual cemetery that were undiscovered by the robbers and in original condition.



We also got to stop at a more recent cemetery on the way back to town ... I dunno why, but I think graveyards are just gorgeous for photographs :) And it's fascinating how people remember their dead. Although I'm all for cremation, I'll admit the idea of a gravestone or something really does appeal to me.

After that they took us to a few other places to show us how the Nazca made pottery and then to see a demonstration of the gold mining process. Nothing too spectacular, honestly. (Clearly my preference is for dead people - haha).

The we went for lunch at Rico Pollo, which I guess is a bit like their Nando's. A quarter chicken & chips (Pollo a la brasa) with an Inca Kola is the standard order, which is what I had :)

After lunch we went for our flight over the Nazca Lines. *YAY*. Well, it's quite a strange experience. We went up in a tiny 4-seater place so that we all had window seats (in groups of 4, obviously). And honestly, even tho I'd taken an air-sick tablet beforehand, I felt I couldn't really appreciate the experience until I'd landed and was looking thru my photos because I felt positively ill for the entire flight. Which I suspect was mostly due to flying in circles at a right-angle to the earth (see photo on right - makes me ill just looking at it!), twice for each Nazca Line, to ensure each side had a chance to get some photos. Nausea aside tho, I am not sure how I feel about the whole experience. I am no closer to understanding what they are all about that I was before the flight (did I think I would be?!?), and really, they are not glaringly obvious as you might expect from photographs.

There are so many lines all over the earth (something to do with the type of earth & the lack of wind(?) there, apparently there are still car-tread marks made in the 1920s), but when you see one of the figures, they are clearly not accidental. I'm not sure how they know when they were made tho. And I do wish we'd had a chance to actually go and see one of them from the land, up close ... even if we couldn't have seen the figure from that view-point, just to get a better idea of what they look like in real life and not from the air (does that make any sense?). Still, they're fascinating.

During our flight we flew over the Whale, the Trapezoids (which seemed quite different in style to the others), the Astronaut / Extraterrestrial / Owl-man (no one can seem to decide what this one is ... I think it looks like a Teletubby :P), the Monkey, the Dog, the Six-Legged Bird Head (which I think would've been more aptly named the Turnip), the Condor, the Spider (photo above left), the Hummingbird (photo below), the Tree, the Lizard, the Hands, the Parrot, one of the Frigate Birds (don't ask me what that is?!) and the Flamingo. Sadly, although I got some great photos, I couldn't include many of them here because the lines aren't really discernible when I scale most them down small enough for the blog :(



And that was us for the day until we caught our 21h30 bus to Arequipa. @UselessRob & I hung out at the hotel pool chatting the time away. So far our group is fab and based on the dynamic so far, I really think the smaller groups work better. I'm also fascinated how the more I travel, the more places remind me of other places. Peru so far definitely has aspects of Namibia and Egypt.

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09 August: Pisco to Nazca

We were up quite early again this morning (05h30) to be ready for a boat trip to the Ballestas Islands. It's strange to me how similar it felt to the boat ride I did in Swakopmund, apparently because they're both West Coastlines, or so my Ageing Aunt tells me. The land at the port was pretty much all sand. The launch was full of pelicans and blue-footed boobys and we saw dolphins as we were going out on the boat too. En route to the islands we stopped for a look at El Candelabro on the cliffs. Apparently the Incas and "The Extraterrestrialies" made it :P I suspect that it was never supposed to represent a candle-stick (or some kind of ancient lighthouse, like we were joking!), but rather more likely to be a cactus (perhaps?).



And then it was on to the Islands themselves. They are completely barren and all rocky outcrops with awesome holes thru the rock and almost every surface is covered with birds. Mostly the boobys, and some pelicans and cormorants. There are a few seals around as well (nothing like Cape Cross in Namibia, which is sorta what I was expecting). It was quite interesting to see but, I'll be honest and say I'm not sure it was worth it personally.

After that we climbed into a private bus and drove to Ica (apparently one of the only towns in the world that is built around a sand dune). We went and had lunch at the Huacachina oasis. Had a delish avo stuffed with shredded chicken, carrots, peas and mayonnaise ("What's your favourite condiment?") called Palta Rellena. It seems to be quite a common dish because I've seen it on most of the menus. Also tried Inca Kola for the first time, it's a luminous yellow fizzy drink.

After lunch we took a wander around the oasis. I can only imagine what it would've been like long ago to come over the top of these giant dunes and find it there!



Then we went to a local distillery to hear about the history of Peruvian wine and how they make Pisco. It was quite interesting to see a small production site like that (it's still used in the summer months to make Pisco). Then they showed us how to test the purity of the Pisco and we got to taste a few different Pisco's (made with different grapes) and their Vino Perfecto Amor ("Perfect Love", which is a lot like sherry), which is also called "the Twin Maker" after some old local story they told us (can't find it online). And then they demonstrated how to make a Pisco Sour, which is quite easy :)

After starting on the alcohol, we decided to get some beers (Cristal) to drink on the bus (honestly, I can *not* believe how much beer I drank on this trip due to lack of options ... since I never drink beer in South Africa!). Eventually, we arrived at Hostel Alegria in Nazca and then went to dinner. Tonight I tried Aji de Gallina, which is quite a bit like a curried chicken dish and I really liked it.

After dinner we went for a drink and I had "Sex on Nazca Lines" (they were all Pisco-based cocktails). It was quite strong!!

First Week Back

So, as I said before, being home means being back to crazy busy weeks :) Which is awesome ... although it does mean that the house is still covered on all the non-clothes items I unpacked on Saturday and haven't sorted thru yet. Terrible, I know.

But I have been slowly making a bit of a dent in my #365 project. In a lot of ways, it's as hard as doing the blog posts because there are so many photos to choose from for each day. But I'm up to the 12th August so far.

On Monday night I went to SCM Dinner. It was lovely to be back, especially since @clairam made a truly delish goulash! Although there was a fairly small crowd there, most of whom I'd already caught up with on Saturday evening.

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On Tuesday evening I went to @jarredcinman's for another delish dinner (yay, have not yet had to buy a single grocery since arriving home ;) ). He made us a *very* nice Vegan pasta dish (although he specially bought some feta for me!) and I took along a very nice bottle of wine. It was an awesome catch-up evening and I took my laptop along to show him the photos (his request, ordinarily I would never bore anyone with *all* of them). Had a bit of a panic attack because I hadn't been thru all my pics yet and I noticed quite a few were missing. Checked the baby-camera when I got home and they're all still on there (and this is why I *never* delete holiday photos immediately!), but hadn't copied across. Seems the battery had run out so haven't yet been able to get them safely off there. But have decided that this weekend I'm going to have to invest in a new storage drive for my photos, the laptop is just about full! I suspect it has to do with the images being so much bigger these days and the fact that I'm taking multitudes more since starting my #365. Will be good to have them all backed up somewhere too.

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And then last night I went to *finally* watch Inception, which actually opened just before I left. Couldn't believe it was still showing ... more so tho, I couldn't believe I wasn't the only person in the cinema at the 17h45 show. How annoying. It was like going to watch a normal-time movie. Pfft.

But, the movie was quite brilliant. What a fun concept. The only thing I think they did wrong was to start the movie with a scene from the end. Often it works quite well to set a movie up, but by the end I felt like it had just been a waste in this movie and entirely unnecessary. And I will admit it took a while to figure out what was going on as they only explained some things later in the movie, but I that I'm entirely okay with :) Seriously if you haven't (cause clearly I wasn't the last person in the world to go see it, as I was expecting), go and watch it.

And after the movie I popped round to my new little studio apartment. I hadn't seen it since I'd put the offer in way back in March. The old tenant had brought the keys round on Tuesday after she'd moved out and had the place cleaned. Wow, even at night I still like the place. I even had a moment of wondering if I could in fact move in there myself ... okay it would mean putting a fair amount of stuff that I bought this year into storage, it only being a studio, but it's not as tiny as I remembered it. And the garden is probably about as big as the bed-lounge area of the unit too. Sigh, but although it's not *miles* away, it's the wrong side of traffic for me and I'm not sure I could live with that! But yay, I'm glad to still be happy with my purchase :) So if anyone is looking for a little garden studio apartment to rent in Lonehill, drop me an email. I'm on the hunt for a new tenant.

And tonight I'm off to another dinner with friends :)

08 August: Lima to Pisco

Tried the Coca tea this morning, as usual I'm not a fan of tea and this isn't too different. But, apparently it has all sorts of fabulous "properties" (They really plug the Coca stuff here as being good for the altitude, not that that's a problem for us yet here at sea level :P), so I figured it was worth a try :)

We took a wander around Lima with the group this morning and met our 2 other tour-mates too. Our group has people ranging in age from 23 to 62 consisting of an American couple, The Ageing Aunt & I, our Peruvian tour-leader and 3 Aussies (1 guy, @UselessRob, & 2 girls all traveling individually).

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We started at Plaza San Martin and walked up to Plaza Mayor (the opposite walk to what The Ageing Aunt & I had done yesterday) but this time we got some explanation of what all the buildings surrounding the squares were.

The architecture in this area of Lima is really quite amazing. Such ornate building decorations & more colourful than you would believe! Plus they also seem to have those old-style enclosed wooden balconies that really reminded me of Zanzibar! View of the Government Palace and Plaza Mayor below.



We popped into the Cathedral of Lima and saw people giving confession! There was even a queue. I dunno why but, I was really keen to get a photo (Oh the fascination I feel at the whole concept of religious confession and that people actually do this!) but, I felt guilty (it being a private thing and their prerogative and all). The joke was that I could've taken a photo anyway and then just joined the end of the queue myself to ask for forgiveness - haha!

Then we went to the Convento de San Francisco. We didn't really go into this church but, instead took a tour into the Catacombs. It was really quite a cool tour, aside from the actual bones in the Catacombs which had all been removed for research and then replaced. They were all in piles in the different areas, sometimes making pattern from the variety of bones (which I thought was just plain strange honestly). The absolute best part of the tour for me was the library with masses of *ancient* books!! Just being in the room felt powerful. Sadly we couldn't take any photos at all :( :(

After that we went back to Plaza Mayor and watched a bit of the changing of the guard outside the Government Palace. There was a band playing and the guards put on quite a choreographed show! Can't quite believe they apparently go thru all this effort every day. And sadly you can't really see it all that well because it is all behind the palace gates and there is quite a bit of security ensuring you can't get anywhere near them.



Then it was time for lunch. We went to a restaurant called Tanta that is apparently owned by quite a famous Peruvian Chef. I tried another Peruvian speciality called Lomo Saltado (none of the ones I saw on the trip looked anything like that Wikipedia photo!!), which in simple terms is beef, tomato and onion stir-fry with chips and rice ... the chips are usually in the stir-fry with the rice on the side. I think the official Peruvian dish may just simply be rice with chips because just about every meal came with both and our Peruvian tour-leader was quite upset if a meal included one but not the other. Me, I'll stick with the choice of one or the other like we get back home, thanks. The amount of rice that got served but left un-eaten over the trip was huge! I don't even eat rice with my Thai or Indian curries, that's how little I like the stuff - haha. Anyway, the Lomo Saltado was quite tasty.

After lunch we caught a public bus to Pisco (the place, not the alcohol ... this time). It took about 4hrs and we eventually arrived at our hotel at 7pm. We're spending the night at Posada Hispana Hotel.

The drive to Pisco was uneventful, but I was quite surprised by the scenery. Mostly desert, quite like Namibia. And all these box-shaped houses covering sand dunes, top to bottom in some areas! Also reminded me of parts of Egypt, actually.

We had dinner at our hotel tonight - apparently there isn't much to see in Pisco since the 2007 earthquake it hasn't quite recovered yet. I will say from the little we saw driving thru the dark that it does look quite run-down.

Dinner was a "personal" (the size) pizza with ham, pineapple & *peach* (their version of a hawaiian). Was quite nice actually. And, of course, a Pisco Sour. We also had plenty of laughs at the menu: "chicken with smashed cookies" and "fish in orange sauce and honey-bees" were my favourites!

And now to bed, we've got an early morning tomorrow!

07 August: Lima

Woke up quite early this morning (6am) but dozed till half past seven when The Ageing Aunt & I got up, showered and went thru for breakfast.

Unfortunately reception is not very helpful because they hardly seem to understand any English but, we chatted to a French family (who had just finished another Intrepid tour) and a Dutch couple and got some tips for our free day in Lima.

Step one was to take a wander around near the hotel and change some USD into Nuevo Sol and then catch a taxi to the Museo Nacional de Arqueologia.

I feel quite safe wandering around here as there are so many other people walking too. Plus there are loads of very easy to spot and helpful security people too. The taxi's are also very easy to find and I like that you fix the price beforehand. Although we have had one or two struggles with trying to explain where we wanted to go and understanding how much it'll cost (at the moment my Spanish numbers only go up to cinco ;) ).

I was dead set on going to the Archaeological Musuem because I was so annoyed at having missed the one in Spain, but sadly the Museo Nacional de Arqueologia was quite disappointing, I thought. Just about everything was only explained in Spanish and mostly all they showed was pottery. I was hoping for a mummy or two ;)

After that we ended up buying a map of Lima. I was quite surprised to have to do that because so many other places I've traveled to seem to just have them freely available at reception. We only had a little map of Miraflores on the back of our hotel pamphlet. We thought we'd be able to walk between museums, but we ended up taking about taxi (this one over charged us, I'm sure!) to the Museo Banco Central de Reserva, which was a *free* museum in the Centro Historica de Lima which the Dutch couple had recommended to us.

I thought this one was well worth it because we even had an actual guide take us around and explain everything. I would definitely recommend this museum over the other one, if you find yourself with some free time in Lima! I especially liked seeing the ancient singing pottery they made actually working! Although I still clearly need to do some more online research into this whole "pre-inca" thing ... Seems like Peru was quite the melting pot of cultures.

When we'd finished our tour, we took a stroll to the nearby Plaza Mayor and generally wandered around looking for a spot for lunch. We found a McDonalds to try. I'm sure I've mentioned before that I tend to eat at least one McDonalds meal in each foreign country I visit because they always have such different menu items and I knew this would be my only day for it! I had the Pollo Gourmet Burger. Not bad, but I'll stick with the Cajun Chicken Deluxe from home instead, thanks.

After a little more wandering around, we caught a taxi back to our hotel and The Ageing Aunt climbed into bed to catch up on her sleep while I took a stroll down Ave Larco to see the South Pacific Ocean for the first time in my life :) Had a wander around Larco Mar (like a mall / plaza thing perched over-looking the sea) and watched paragliders in the air and loved hearing the ocean waves ... I certainly miss some things by living in Joburg!



And then it was back to the hotel after a quick browse around a little deli-supermarket - for some reason I love going to see what weird and wonderful things the day-to-day grocery shops stock in other countries. There are no odd flavours of Fanta for me to try tho, sadly (another travel-quirk of mine ... I can't explain this one either tho! Haha).

We had our tour joining meeting this afternoon too. It's a much smaller group than I've traveled with before, there'll only be a total of 8 of us, and that's including our tour-leader (2 of the group have yet to arrive tho).

The 6 of us all went to a local restaurant for dinner called El Parquetito and got our first taste of Pisco Sour, a very popular cocktail made with the local Pisco alcohol. Actually it was a whole evening of trying new things. I had Loin of Alpaca cooked in Pisco with mashed sweet potato (while in Peru you'll be told they have anything up to 4000 varieties of potato, I checked online and WikiAnswers says it's actually more like 184). It was delish! I also tried another non-alcoholic local drink called Chicha Morada ("made with Midnight Corn" - inside joke, sorry), which reminded me a lot of Gluhwein, it was quite cinnamon-y, but cold.

After dinner we took a bit of a wander around Parque Central Kennedy which was bustling with people and children and stalls all night. We noticed a very fancy old-style car outside the Inglesia Matriz Virgen Milagrosa (Catholic church) and realised there was a wedding going on inside so we (along with quite a few other passers by) popped in for a quick look. Voyeuristic, I guess?

And then we went to another spot for a drink. We all tried a Machu Picchu Cocktail (also made with Pisco but with 3 colour layers), which was quite potent!

After that we headed home, I was quite tired. Seems I wasn't as successful as I thought at breaking in my new hiking boots tho, because my ankles are now killing me after the day's walking around :(

Post-Holiday Blues

Sigh. I did not wake up feeling happy this morning. Rather I was quite overwhelmed with the whole real-life-ness of everything. I can't remember when I felt like this (no doubt sometime back when I was dating Varen and my life was *far* more mundane and I spent ages wondering if that was as good as it got ... but luckily it wasn't!).

I can only put this down to post-holiday blues. But honestly, if I thought I could've gotten away with it, I would've switched off the alarm and stayed in bed and panic-ed all day about all the grown-up adult and responsible things that need doing in life (even more so now that I've spent a blissful 3 weeks far from thinking about any of them!). Omg, I own an apartment again. And my tenant has just moved out (her lease with the previous owner was up at the end of August and she decided not to renew it because while I was waiting for transfer to go thru, she put an offer in on her own place which she's moving to instead ... which makes total sense, but sucks for me!). So I have a month to find myself a new tenant. Sigh. Admin. I have to sort out my Tax (urgh). I have to get round to booking all those annoying annual doctors/dentist visits.

And then there is all the day-to-day nonsense that I'm avoiding. Yes, not every day is the same, and let's be honest, my life could be more boring ... by midday yesterday I had plans for every evening this week until Saturday! (Sheesh).

I'm sure this too will pass, as life just rolls on and things just happen and it all just has to get done (let's just take it one day at a time, okay?). But honestly, I'd often rather just hide away and ignore all the responsible things.

06 August: Johannesburg to Buenos Aires to Lima

My Ageing Aunt arrived from Cape Town last night and caught the Gautrain to Sandton where I collected her and reloaded my travel card in preparation for this morning.

When we got home I was about to start actually trying to pack everything I'd put out into my bag. Three attempts later and plenty of items returned to my cupboard and I was done. I don't think I've ever struggled as much to pack. All this additional gear (hiking boots, sleeping bags etc.) really takes up more space than I'm used to!

This morning we woke up at 05h30 sharp and left the house an hour later. TheHousemate took us to the Sandton Gautrain station, which we then took to the airport. So much better than needing a lift to the airport at that sort of hour! Again, I freaking *love* the Gautrain :)

We checked in for our flight, went thru passport control and then had a delish breakfast at Newscafe before boarding. I will point out my amusement at the irony of getting metal cutlery on the plane but that awful plastic stuff at Newscafe in the airport :P

The SAA flight to Buenos Aires was *long*. We left Joburg at about 10am (5am Buenos Aires time) and flew for about 11hrs (arrived in Buenos Aires at 16h15). I didn't really want to sleep too much on the flight, it being "daytime" and all and me trying to set my body clock for our new time zone. But they pretty much faked a night flight with the lights off and windows closed the entire way :(

I did snooze a little. What I did not do was enjoy the flight. We had those main-console entertainment systems which showed only 2 (rubbish) movies the entire flight: The Ghost Writer (which I was interested to watch but was so boring I fell asleep during) and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (which I've seen before and know that it is so bad that even the presence of Sean Connery can not save it!)

The food on the plane was fine, I particularly enjoyed the vegetarian meal I had.

And then we landed in Buenos Aires and got shuffled thru, had our hand-luggage re-scanned (I dunno what they think I might have found on the plane to add to it :P Metal Cutlery?) and were told to go to Gate 2 for out TACA flight to Peru.

Except we didn't have a boarding pass for our second flight. Every other time that that has happened to me (Morocco to Spain), we've arrived and gone to a check-in desk to collect it. Not here! Here they were quite rude and all anyone would tell us was "Lima, Gate 2!" ... Yes, surprise, I already know that :P

About an hour before out Lima flight, someone arrived at our Gate and people swarmed to the counter. Turns out no one in transit had a boarding pass and they were about to be issued.

The flight to Lima was uneventful. I slept thru most of it. It also only had main-console entertainment and the meal was the most pathetic I've had on a plane in memory.

But, we arrived in Lima safely, now 7hrs behind South African time at 20h50. We got our passports stamped, collected our bags and cleared customs. And then waited while being harassed by taxi drivers for our pre-booked transfer to the hotel.

They tell you they'll have a sign with your name and not to go with anyone else, but they didn't. I was pretty sure tho that this poor guy who could only speak Spanish couldn't have guessed a name like mine when asked, so I felt okay going with him anyway.

After a lengthy drive from the airport, we arrived at Hostal Buena Vista and checked into our room. It is now a full 24hrs since we'd woken up in South Africa to start our journey! Straight to bed.

The Return

Ola. Buenos Dias amigos y amigas. Allyanchou.

Yes folks, I'm back from a truly awesome 3 weeks in Peru. I won't go into too much of the holiday detail now (ruin the suspense and all), but the much anticipated holiday posts will commence shortly and then we can all vicariously live it again. Yay.

Sigh, I can't believe I am already at the office. More importantly I can't believe I'm the first one here ... am wondering if we moved while I was away?! It's not impossible considering some recent events, but the place looks the same and my key still works - haha.

So what have I been up to post-return. Not too much really. TheBundles have not yet accepted my presence sadly :( But things do seem calmer between them all. I have unpacked (that is not to say I have re-packed anything that was unpacked away yet tho). I spent a fair amount of time online trying to catch-up ... mostly that means faffing on The Big Fake and trying to get my first week of holiday posts done and dusted (they take a fair amount of time, transferring the manual entries onto the blog and then tracking down links and re-sizing photos). Have not even thought about my #365 project yet tho ... give me a chance!

I took CollegeInstructor out for some Thai food on Saturday evening for dinner to say thanks for looking after TheBundles so well. And I even managed to keep my eyes open till late enough on Saturday night to make a swing past Red Room ... there were promises of a big night with the whole crowd which didn't materialise so I was home and in bed before 1am. And on Sunday I had a lovely catch-up lunch with @Arkwife :)

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And now excuse me while I head off to work my way thru my office emails (and hope someone arrives) ... luckily only 158 (of the 1625) have not been auto-filtered (and therefore ignored).