Hola from Peru

Hope you´re all well! I´m in good form, I´ve had a great first week in
Peru. Some of this might be a bit long but this is a record for me
too... also this keyboard is crazy so apologies for the punctuation.
For any of you who have been to Peru before, I am sure you will find
this all familiar...

We arrived in Lima last Monday after an epic journey - door to door
for me was 24 hours with three flights involved. The journey didn´t
start well with me leaving my mp3 player on the plane from Edinburgh
to London - I realised this as I was queueing for my flight to Miami
and it was too late to go back. So no decent tunes for the next couple
of months - not a good situation! I have actually been having dreams
with techno soundtracks... Anyway, I decided to not stress out about
it, in a way it was good to get the "losing something" part of the
trip over and done with. I got into Lima airport about 10.30 in the
evening local time and thankfully there was a guy with a sign with my
name on it to bring me to my hotel. He sorted me out with a taxi. By
this time I was sleep deprived and had The Fear and started to freak
out a little when the taxi driver pulled on some fingerless leather
gloves and drove me down a deserted street - but it turns out he was
just on the way to the highway to Lima, phew. Second minor disaster
there - a bottle of shower gel exploded in the bottom of my rucksack.
Ah well, lessons were learned etc.

Lima is nuts, we only spent a night and half a day there, and in the
nicest area at that. Which to be honest wasn´t very nice. We had
occasion to eat in a Swiss restaurant that was holding a risotto
festival - I hear its a Peruvian tradition.

We soon high-tailed it down the coast. The scenery in this part of the
world is desert, desert and more desert. Well, after the slums on the
outskirts of Lima. Our first stop was the village of Paracas. The bus
had to drive over the sand to get to the stop. Mental. We were only in
Paracas one night - the reason being that we wanted to take the early
morning boat trip to the Islas Ballestas. These are known as the poor
mans Galapogos but they were worth a trip - got to see lots of
birdlife including pelicans, as well as sealions.

Next stop was Huacachina. This is basically a holiday resort in the
desert which is based round a lagoon - proper oasis style. Huachachina
is good for chilling out by the pool, sandboarding and going on tours
to local wineries. Some chilling out by the pool lead to us meeting a
Dutch couple and a couple of Canadian girls who were all good fun. We
went sandboarding with them - basically a crazy Pervian driver pelts
you around sand dunes on a buggy contraption at about 40 miles an
hour, the higher the angle on the dune and the more chance of rolling
over the buggy the better. Think roller coasters without ANY of the
safety features and you are nearly there. They let you out
periodically to get belly down on a sandboard and hurtle face first
down a dune - again the higher and steeper the better. This is
ridiculously good fun and I heartily recommend it. Actually, funnily
enough our driver got stuck in a dune on the way back due to some
Canadian dude getting motion sickness - loser - which was quite
amusing - we had to be rescued and the driver was slagged off big time
by his amigos. Me and Mark also went on a 10am tour around a couple of
wineries where they make Pisco, the local brandy. Drunk by lunchtime,
I'm sure you are all surprised by that carry on.

I also did my first bit of solo adventuring in Huacachina when I
taxied it into the nearby town of Ica to purchase tickets for The Bus
Journey From Hell, more of which later. I should point out that most
of the west coast of Peru was flattened by an earthquake in 2007,
which explains why most of the buildings are half built or in rubble.
Not pretty.

Onwards from Huacachina to Nazca where we went on an overflight of the
Nazca lines, which are basically these giant carvings of unknown
origin in the desert. Pretty impressive, but I was concentrating quite
hard on not dying or throwing up in the little 4 seater rust bucket
they sent us up in...

Yesterday and the day before were spent on a marathon trek across
country to get to Puno where we are now. Saturday saw us take a nine
hour journey from Nazca to Arequipa, the second city of Peru. This
wasn't too bad, we knew what to expect, they fed us and kept us going
with movies including a second viewing of PS I Love You, which I was
happy about as I had missed the last hour on the Paracas to Huacachina
journey. Cruz del Sur, the bus company, are your best friend in Peru.
We stayed overnight in Arequipa, with the intention of boarding a
10am, four hour bus to Puno. Instead, it turned into The Bus Journey
From Hell. Four hours late departing, it turned out that they had lied
to us and it actually took six hours, one movie which they showed at
the start of the journey and no reading lights - it got dark at 6pm.
Thankfully the altitude sickness was kicking in at this point and my
hallucinations were keeping me amused. Mind you the delay did mean we
got to go back in and have a look around Arequipa, where we saw a
mental parade that seemed to consist of police, military, chefs and
air hostesses, so it wasn't all bad.

So here we are in Puno, about 3800 metres above sea level. I was
suffering pretty bad with the altitude this morning, headaches and
nausea, but I feel better now. I think it is kicking in for Mark just
now. Today we had a wander round Puno in the morning - there were tons
of riot police about, in preparation for some sort of massive protest,
which we had a good look at. Nuts. This afternoon we visited the
Sillustani, which are ancient burial towers where they buried Inca and
pre-Inca rulers. Pretty awesome and about 4k up in the most beatiful
mountain terrain. Tomorrow we are taking a boat trip out on the
amusingly named Lake Titicaca.

The plan then was to take a bus up to Cusco for the Inca Trail.
Unfortunately we found out today that there is a three day national
strike on in Peru starting tomorrow. Now, the bus companies are mostly
willing to keep running, but the problem is the mad bastards who set
up roadblocks on the roads, consisting mostly of boulders and other
heavy things. So we have booked a flight from Juliaca, which is about
an hour away, and have organised a very, very early taxi, which will
be taking "alternative routes" to the airport. Fingers crossed. In a
way, I am glad not to have to face the inside of a Peruvian bus ever
again. The drivers are all crazy - think overtaking trucks on blind
corners and you have the gist of it - and the erattic timing leaves
something to be desired.

It wouldn't be like me not to mention the food. So far, its been
decent enough. Actually the food here in Puno is very good, we had a
really good two course meal last night for under a tenner.

Overall I am having a great time. You just have to be accepting of the
fact that this is Peru and that things work differently here... I am
looking forward to Cusco and the Inca Trail. After which, into the
great unknown of Bolivia, which should be interesting... Missing you
all - hope JPs is kicking along without me. Stephen and Graham, send
my love to Matt and tell him I said thank you. Ciara, you might want
to forward this to your ma, she said she would be interested in
hearing how I am getting on. Susie B, hope the replacement flatmate is
adequate. I have actually been significantly detoxing since leaving
that flat, coincidence I am sure... thanks for reading folks, I will
do another update when I get to Bolivia.

Love to you all,

Daragh xx