The Trip has officialy started and it started full on with plenty of adrenaline and adventure... We are a group of 13 people mainly Americans and Australians average age is around 30... really lovely people!!! We left Lima early on the 5th and I do know now why everybody says LIMA is so dangerous... pretty much you have like a little rectangle between the 2 main plazas.. there everything is clean, pretty, loaded with police officers... once we drove out of that zone you are hit by poverty... houses that are falling apart poor people on the street.. its as if almost the modern Lima airport and thise 2 blocks zone is a mask that the city puts on for the tourist... we experience dthe full on traffic with plenty of street vendors winding their way through the lanes packd with cars constantly pullng the horn... leaving the city it gets drier and drier becoming a desert and the shanty towns start.. one after another... people living in ruins of what may be called a house or in some sort of box put together out of different materials.. had a toilet stop at one of those places which was quite an experience.... I leave it at that..haha
After a few hours we arrived at a little touristic city and took a boat to the Islas Ballestas or also known as the poor mans Galapagos island... MY GOD the rocks were filled with birds and seals as if there as no free stop to be seen. AMAZING.. also so some tiny Humbold Pinguins AMAING. I thought I sw wildlife in NZ but this soooo many!!! These lovely animals in in particular birds obviously produce a lot of Poo poo (Guana) over which Peru ad Chile had quite a dispute in the past.. yes, over poo.. why? because every 7 years they clean it off the island and i gets made into faboulous fertiliser.
From there we were off to a little Oasis in the desert (pretty much the entire area was really try and sand everywehere). from this little town the fun ride started.. we went on these BUggies which are 4 by 4 vehicles and the driver went like a manic up and down the sand dunes.. SOOOOO much fun. we were all screaming and laughing like crazy... then we were sandboarding.. again NZ sandboard was nothing .. I am so glad I didnt look down before getting on the board.. we went steeper and steeper as the continued boarding and you pick up quite some speed... SCARY but loads of fun... sunset in the desert was beautiful as well..
We all just had our sleeping bags and after a barbecue (super delicious chicken)and some chatting we slept under the stars... really cool. Next day we had breakfast in the little town and then headed to Nasca where we are staying on a camping site... IN Nasca is where the famoue Nasca lines are... an astronaut, spider, tree etc figures carved in the stone... nobody quite knows how they got there.. we took a flight over the lines in this tiny aircraft... fun as well and interesting to see the lines.... once again my stomach wasnt too happy about it.. I think I was just too tired and exhausted when I got on the plane.. hey I lasted till the last figure haha...
Tomorrow we are off to Puerto Inca to visit a famous cemetery and will be Bushcamping meaning that it will be in the wild... Having a great time so far! hope you are all well
Stef
