Paracas, Lima and home....

Paracas is essentially a small resort town for Limenos, with an extensive nature reserve and the Ballesteros islands, nicknamed (inaccurately at the moment at least due to El Nino) the poor man's Galapagos!

Guano cormorants

Lunch!

Our speedboat trip to the islands, the main source of the guano exported to the UK amongst others until around 1920, on a grey morning was a bit disappointing....

Only 4 penguins on the island!

Atmospheric former guano works

Back in Lima we enjoyed a bike tour of Barranco and Chorillos. We were rather alarmed to see the man dressed as a friar throwing himself off the cliff but apparently this is a daily occurrence in recognition of a local Romeo and Juliet type tale.

Peruvianus Monstrosus cactus

Peruvian hairless dog....also monstrous!

Finally, an excellent visit to the Larco Herrera archaeological museum, where the pre-Inca silver and gold nose and ear decoration appeared particularly alien!

And now the airport and the long journey home!

North to Ica

Out first overnight coach ride (12 hours) was surprisingly comfortable with almost fully reclining seats and a choice of films but it is still slightly unsettling sleeping in a bus!

Villa Jazmin, simple hotel nestling below the dunes

We came to Ica, in part, for the bodegas for Pisco and the vineyards for wine. We were joined on our tour by a bunch of young Americans, on the last night of their holiday who were determined to have a good time. As the bodegas are also used by the locals as restaurants and clubs we certainly did. Our first dancing of the trip!

Our 'guide' Williams!

Ceramic pisco containers in eclectic collection

New friend!

The other attraction near Ica is the Huacachina oasis set outside of the town in the desert in the midst of some huge, dramatic dunes on which you can undertake dune buggy rides and sandboardimg. Both were adrenalin charged with some amazing gradients, angles and speed. Carolyn declined the sandboarding as not keen to have sand in her ears, eyes and who knows where else!

Spot Carolyn on the slope Nic just went down head first1

Huacachina at dusk

Oh yes, we also went to an excellent archaeological museum with a fine display of pre-Inca ceramics and textiles and a fairly ghoulish collection of mummies and deliberately deformed and trophy decapitated heads!

Arequipa, white water rafting and more trekking

Arequipa is Peru's second city but thinks itself above Lima! It is framed by three enormous volcanos and is subject to frequent seismic tremors.

Cathedral in Plaza de Armas

Protest by the retired (jubilado in Spanish, we like that!)

Inglesia la Campania (1660)

Arequipa's cenre is affluent and energetic with an astonishing number of colonial churches and original buildings. In particular the huge Monasterio de Santa Catalina, almost a separate walled town within the city which housed 200 nuns and 300 servants from the late 16th century onwards, was very impressive. Now about 30 nuns remain.

El Misti in the background.....

Room of a wealthier nun ...

Arequipa is also renowned for its food:

Quinoa, prawn, avocado and mango salad, very few food miles!

Nic has always wanted to do whitewater rafting and the Grade 3 Chile river was on offer which just met out travel insurance limit. It was great and we never really felt we were about to tip over... really ...

Carolyn hides in the bottom of the boat!

Trekking was also back on the agenda, so to the Colca canyon, claimed to be the deepest in the world and more than 1 km from rim to the bottom. The trip there took us back up to just under  5,000 metres but our bodies seemed to have retained our higher haemoglobin count. More mindblowing scenery especially the pre- Inca terracing near the canyon.

The area also has a renowned spot for condor watching, they were only a few feet over our heads at one point. The Andean condor has a wingspan up to 3 metres!

The trek into the canyon involved an exhausting descent in the heat of the afternoon of some 1400 metres. Whilst the rustic hut accommodation in the oasis at the bottom lacked hot water, windows etc, it did have a swimming pool fed by the river which was very welcome. It was not so wonderful trekking back up under the stars at 5 am the next morning but we did it in under 3 hours and we can admit to a certain (well concealed obviously) smugness at our time; it was a big walk for us as there was a degree of pressure to get up well before the sun was fully up and as part of a larger and much younger group.

Oasis Paradise (?!)

We made it!

Chilean coastal towns and desert

Ok, we have to admit that we have spent some of our recent days in buses of varying degrees of comfort/discomfort gazing out into  the mostly nothingness of the Atacama desert. It is mainly greyish rubble, totally devoid of anything to attract the eye,other than rolling hills and occasional dust eddies. 

Matters did improve when we reached the coast road leading to port of Iquique, one of the few towns on this stretch of coast leading up to the Chilean border. Iquique was in fact once an extremely prosperous place beginning when guano, i.e. bird shite, was in demand, followed by the mining of silver and nitrate ores. The available monies enabled an attractive colonial centre to be built along with an opera house where leading European singers once sung. The latter was open and fascinating to look round although there was little evidence of the promised 'renovation'.

Teatro municipal

Calle Baquedano with timber pavements

Yes, the dog is wearing jeans!

Torre Reloj

There are also miles of beaches with some amazing surf and good fish and seafood to be had which we enjoyed for the two days we stayed there in between buses! The only problem is that the weather was very hazy, so paragliding, for which the town is a world leading centre, was off the menu!

Monster mussel

Not sure if I am happy right now....

Our next stop was in Arica, another port and the last town before the Peruvian border. Once again, it had previously been immensely rich, originally  because of its wool trade with England and then the nitrate trade. The centre includes a lovely church made entirely of iron and, like numerous other buildings we seem to be seeing in South America, by Gustav Eiffel!  We also climbed the El Morro cliff, the site of a major Chilean victory in the War of the Pacific. Once again we ate some great fish and walked around the fishing dock getting really close up to the seals and pelicans that have very much adapted to their local environment.

Inglesia de San Marcos

El Morro