So I finished my last post in Lima having just said goodbye to my little travel group. After Lima I got a bus down to Paracas with Erika, another English girl, to see what had been described to us as the 'poor mans Galapagos'. I think that's putting it kindly because from my experience that man must have been very poor indeed. Basically, you can go on a 1 and a half hour boat ride out to a nearby island where you can see lots of sea lions, various types of birds and you might just be able to see a few Humboldt penguins. You can't get off the boat however and the whole area of Paracas basically smells like seaweed and bird poo. It was cool to see the sea lions and a few penguins but the trip was fairly disappointing overall and certainly hasn't satisfied my aim to one day to go to the real Galapagos. Paracas in general was a bit of a let down- the whole town lost power for a few hours both days we were there and I'm almost ashamed to admit this but on the second day as we entered hour 3 of no internet or power I actually made myself have a nap because there was nothing else to do.
However, after Paracas we headed a bit further south to another small town called Huacachina which we absolutely loved. To call it a town is probably exagerrating; it is literally an oasis and a couple of streets that have been plonked down in the middle of sand dunes as you can see below (apologies for iPhone photos, I didn't want to get sand in my camera). It was so amazing to see the huge dunes surrounding the town and our hostel was good too (Bananas hostel FYI). We met some really cool people there and after a few drinks at the only bar in town (aptly named 'Huaca-f******-china') we made the decision at midnight to walk up to the highest sand dune we could find. It probably took about an hour to get up there and we were joined by some lovely local dogs who we like to think were protecting us on our journey. The view from the top was amazing and we could see the lights from lots of towns for miles around. Unfortunately nobody had a decent enough camera to get any good photos up there but that night is probably one of my favourite memories from the last month.
The next day we headed out for the main reason anyone heads to Huacachina- a ride in a dune buggy and sandboarding. The dune buggy was so much fun, heading down huge sand dunes is probably more fun than most roller coasters. I also had a young Chinese boy screaming in my ear the whole time which definitely enhanced the experience. Next was the sand boarding which was terrifying. We had a practice run on 3 smaller dunes but even on those I wouldn't even think about standing up, which most other people at least attempted- though there were a fair few painful looking falls on the way down. I resigned myself to sitting down which was still fun but I wish we'd got to spend a bit more time in the buggy to be honest, though that's just because I'm a bit of a wimp when it comes to facing my fears of hurtling face first down near 90 degree sand dunes.
After the sand dunes we had to hurry back to town to get our bus back to Lima as we'd decided to fly from there to Cusco to avoid a nearly 24 hour bus. The amount of sand on my body during that bus ride was ridiculous; I kept finding new patches of skin that needed brushing off and I don't think I got all of the sand out of my hair for a good few days after.
We spent 2 more days doing not very much in Lima, although I did go for a wander and find the Parque de Amor. The centrepiece of this park was of a couple kissing and it seems that it encourages life to imitate art- the park was full of loved-up couples. Despite this it was a lovely place to stumble across, with love quotations written out in mosaic tiles all over. A little further down from the park also seemed to be a popular launching point for people to go paragliding- there must have been 20 different people flying around at one point. In the end I think I did like Lima, despite the bad reputation it seems to gain from travellers, and I'd recommend a visit there to anyone going through Peru.
The next day Erika & I headed to the airport for our flight to Cusco, feeling very smug at reducing a 24 hour journey to just 1 hour. I had a really good feeling about Cusco as soon as we left the airport. It's a great city with a lovely old town and little streets full of shops selling the usual souvenirs. There are old women in traditional dress holding baby llamas in adorable woollen hats everywhere and a legitimate way for these old women to make money is to charge gringos 2 soles (40p) for a photo with them. Somehow I managed to resist but those baby llamas really were adorable.
There's a market in Cusco which sells pretty much anything you could wish to buy, though much to my horror there was also one section where I witnessed a man hacking up a whole pig with a saw. There's also a black market where you can buy pretty much anything counterfeit and, luckily for me, you can get your phone screen fixed cheap- moral of the story don't leave your phone unattended while charging in a hostel because other people really don't care if they knock your phone off and leave it smashed on the floor.
We also went on a walking tour in Cusco, although it wasn't exactly so much about Cusco as it was about the culture of Peru generally, as well as telling the story of the tour guide's life. We found out that when he was younger he had no choice but to help in the production of cocaine in the jungle (something he was not proud of) which I think startled a few of the older members of the tour.
Of course the other thing people do from Cusco is go to Machu Picchu. I was so indecisive for ages about how to do it, I didn't want to do a 5 day trek and I wasn't feeling the popular jungle trek which included 4 hours of downhill mountain biking. In the end me and Sarah, a Canadian girl I've met along the way, decided to do the cheapest way possible which is to get a 7 hour bus to a hydroelectrico station then walk 2-3 hours down the train tracks to the town next to Machu Picchu. At one point on this walk the train that the richer travellers can afford to take passes you by but the walk isn't too bad if you can handle the flies swarming on you.
We had a pretty early night in Aguas Calientes and the next morning we were up at 3.30am to get in the queue for the bus up to Machu Picchu. We got there at the perfect time because a few minutes later we saw the queue was getting so long and we managed to get on the second bus of the day. Machu Picchu itself is really amazing. I honestly can't fathom how the Inkas managed to build the town, though it is considered that they were the most intelligent ancient civilisation. We didn't get a tour guide there but we tried to be sneaky and just latch on to various different groups to hear snippets of information. The mountains surrounding the site were amazing too, the looked really mystical with the fog surrounding them. All in all, of course I'd say that Machu Picchu is a must see if you're in Peru- and don't let people make you feel guilty about not doing a proper trek if its not for you!
There's also lots of llamas in Machu Picchu- Sarah was unsuccessful in getting a decent selfie unfortunately.
The last few days have been fairly uneventful; we stayed a night in Puno on the way to cross the border into Bolivia but I decided against the floating islands there as I'd heard they were very touristy nowadays. I did however, inexplicably, find life size replicas of the animals in Ice Age so of course I had a photo next to them.
Then I decided to get the bus all the way to La Paz as I know a few people here at the moment. I've not done too much here so far apart from find a lovely little coffee shop where I got a nutella latté, so clearly I'm being very cultural so far. The city doesn't seem like it'll be my favourite but I'm planning on doing the walking tour today so hopefully I'll see some good parts of the city.
I'll try not leave it 3 weeks for the next update, but don't hold it against me if I fail!
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