Bag arrived just in the nick of time as we checked out of our hotel - shower, fresh clothes and 1/2 hour late for our meeting with local travel agent.  but first - funny breakfast story!

As we walked into the breakfast room (at our very flash Lima hotel) Dave had a slightly 'uncomfortable' momento... sitting at the tables were very well presented business people, all set for offical business on a monday morning!  Meanwhile, he was looking rather scruffy given that he had the same clothes on that he left NZ in 4 days previously, unshaven, and unshowered waiting for the bag to arrive.  He commented that ... "I feel like I don't belong in my own environment'... lol - a great way to get away from work and really get into holiday mode, no longer a business man... The look on his face - PRICELESS!!

So, we arrived to meet Pocha, our local travel consultant.  A moment of reflection as we worked out weather to trust a stranger.  She was a whizz - almost too good to be true.  Put together an action packed itinery in 5 minutes.  She reassured us she had been helping tourists since 1981 and knew the best people.  She asked for the cash and said she would be back in 30 minutes with all the tickets, including our overnight bus to Nasca to Arequipa.  The one thing we had agreed prior to leaving NZ was that we wounld, under no circumstances take the night bus.  It was too dangerous - we had researched well and knew the stories of armed holdups and robberies.  But this confident stranger reassured us and the Hotel Kamana in Lima gave their guarantee.  So again - the question - "do we trust a stranger in a new country?"  She was either a great find or a very good operator???  So we handed over the cash (a lot) and rushed to the bus station with minutes to spare and assurance that at every point there would be someone to meet us, with a named board, and transfer to our hostel.

Onto the first bus and arrival in Paracas - 5 hours down the coast.  No bus terminal, a dusty spot on the side of the road in a small fishing village.  No man with a sign.  Every other passenger stayed on the bus to go to the next town.  Oh no... then from the crowd ... "David?"  Our man was there to meet us and in charge of our transfer to the hostel ... (see picture). 

Fantastic, good rooms, great food and trust of a stranger worked out so far. 

Early start the next day with many local rosters and horns, dogs and people.  No alarm necessary for our 730am start for the boat trip to Islas Ballestas - known as 'the poor man's Galapagos'.  Cool boat trip and a heap of birds, peguins, pelicans, shags, and some sea lions and crabs to boot.  Then back to the shore and onto our road trip to a vast desert.  The Reserva Nacional de Paracas - the National Park of Paracas.  Dusty, not much there.  No animals to see - apparently they have all gone south.  It only rains for 4 or 5 minutes every 5 years when there is El nino weather pattern here - a long drought!  Great coastal vista and a cruisy afternoon.  Our man Edwardo no see at the end of the bus trip however... so the hotel transfered us from the Santa Maria Hostel in his very cool beach buggy to the next bus journey.

Sitting up the front of the bus on the top story watching the driving was an experience to say the least!  Maybe next time we will pick our seat so we can not see the traffic and the passing manouvers...  Still arrived safe and well in Nascas, an hour late and in the dark - but there he was - our man with a sign with Dave's name on it!  How we have come to treasure those signs.... Another great hostel and dinner out on the town in Nasca.

So this morning we have been our flying over the Nasca Lines - a world heritage site and mystery as to why they exist and why the ancient people made them.  We have our own theories - like many others as we have found out.  Was a very cool flight in a wee six seater cessna plane, with a teenage pilot who had mastered the art of banking left, banking right, talking, pointing out landmarks - all at the same time!  Sue ended up somewhat nauseated for the rest of the day, while Dave had a grin from ear to ear!  Excellent trip and views. 

Spent the rest of the day wandering the town, sorting the next step in the trip, gathering supplies and hanging out.  Nice.

Tonight - the night bus to Arequipa.  Remember, the trip that we agreed that we would not take... onwards.  Please contact Kamana Hotel, Lima to claim on the guarantee if necessary.  Should be fine.

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Paracas - del 5 a 6 abril.- Aquí faig un altre paradeta abans d'arribar a Lima. La gracia de paracas esta en les illes ballestes i la península de Paracas. Com que ja no tinc massa temps la peninsula la deixo estar (crec que tampoc era cap meravella, es d'aquelles coses que ets un superornitoleg o estudiós dels animals o tampoc i veus el que) pero si que vaig a veure les illes ballestes, diuen que son les galapagos pobres, mmmmm... no sé. Pel camí ens ensenyen un altre dibuix a la sorra, el candelabro, que no acabo d'entendre si té algo que veure amb la cultura paracas i ve a ser com lo de les linies de Nazca o és algo que han fet ara.
Bueno la primera impresió de l'illa t'entra pel nas: és una pudor barreja d'aigua de mar, peix i caca d'ocell, a més aquesta olor la conserves per tot el dia, anant amb la superlanxa a tota velocitat cara al vent i amb l'aigua que t'esquitxa, se't queda l'olor impregnada al cabell i la roba (o almenys és la mania que vaig agafar jo).
Bueno total, que l'illa esta plena d'ocells, sobretot gavines, i guano, como no. També hi havia algun pinguinillo, pelicanos i tambe hi havien lleons arins que eran bastan més actius que no pas els que havia vist a l'atlantic, bueno pot ser van a temporades i ara estaven cuidant als petits i tenien més activitat.
Lo que és el poble no tenia massa res, basicament un passeig ple de restaurants de peix i marisc i després més apartats alguns hotelillos, uns quants és veien així de pasta. També encara quedaven restes del mal que va fer el terratremol, bueno el maremoto que hi va haver l'agost del 2007, diu que on va fer molt mal és a Pisco, una mica més al nord. Pel que vaig sentir no estan massa bé alla encara, de fet aconsellaven a uns gringos que hi volien anar que no hi anessin, que no hi havia res per veure i que s'arriscaven a que els hi passes algo. (Bueno eran gruingos d'aquells que es veu que tenien peles, vamos que si tens gana i no tens que menjar i t'estan mirant t'han de venir ganes de menjar-te'ĺs a ells).

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We left Lima on the 8.45am bus for the 4 hour trip to Paracas, driving through the Lima suburbs until hitting the open road.  Much of the coast along here is extremely arid, with the odd green oasis popping up.  Many of the villages have large ´´Christ the Redeemer´¨ style statues on nearby hills, and the earthquake damage from a few months ago is quite obvious.  There are many collapsed or damaged buildings, and still a lot of USAID tents about.  Our hotel here is right on the beach, and we had a room with a lovely sea-view.

Straight after arriving, we took a bus trip out to the Reserva Nacional de Paracas, which consists mostly of huge expanses of desert, but some interesting coastal scenery with cliffs and rock formations.  There appears to be several archaeological sites as well, but these were not explained to us - we assume they´re probably evidence of early settlements.  Had lunch at Lagunillas and then sat on the beach for an hour or so.  This place was also earthquake damaged and is very basic.  The food was good, but the toilet consisted of a 20litre paint bucket in a corner with a curtain around it.  Simple, but functional!  We then drove around to the cliff area known as La Catedral which unfortunately had partly collapsed in the quake, so now consists of an outcrop of rock on its own just off the cliff itself.

We walked into town for dinner and found a nice little local cafe run by a friendly little elderly lady.  The food was absolutely delicious, mostly seafood based, and the portion sizes were enormous.  The beer was also very cheap, so prime backpacker territory!

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The first day that we arrived in Peru was in the city of Lima. The next morning we went straight to Paracas. You will come across many other small towns, who were unfortunatly a victim of the big earthquake that struck Peru. The people do appreciate that you are there, because the live of the tourists, so they need us. Paracas itself is an oasis of beauty. You have a quiet town, with extraordaniry nice people, beautiful desert, the amazing ballesta - islands and great food for such a small price. When you are in Paracas, make sure you go and visit the Ballesta - islands, do a jeepride through the dessert and have a relaxing time there. This was really one of my highlights of my trip to Peru.

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Thursday - We made it up to the Cruz Del Sur bus station well ahead of schedule - so well ahead of shedule that it was shut!  It also happend to be in a red light district - think a South American King´s Cross!  Fortunately, the taxi driver let us wait in his cab for 40 minutes until the lights came-on and the bus station opened-up!  We didn´t notice straight away but there was a car of police parked near us, so there wouldn´t have been any problems - although it was a nervous wait.  We did laugh about it as soon as we walked through the gates though!

The journey south was in a very comfortable bus, although it was driven rather erratically by our UK standards, plenty of overtaking in single lane traffic in poor visibility!  We arrived safely down the coast in Paracas and got to the Hotel Mirador, where we had 3 nights booked - it was a little bit more "basic" than we had expected, but it was fine - an oasis in a desert town.  After exploring Paracas Town itself, we headed back to the hotel.  Dinner was a vegetarian pizza (so we were assured!), although it consisted  of huge slabs of ham!   We hid the ham in napkins and popped them slyly in the bin!

Friday - We were up early (although not by our standards of yesterday!) and headed down to the harbour of Paracas for our trip to the Balestas Islands.  This trip had only been running for the last couple of weeks after a break of a month due to the destruction of the ramp that allowed people to get onto the boats.      It has been cruely and crudely dubbed "The poor man´s Gallapagos", but we preferred to call it the "The rich man´s Balestas Islands"!  It didn´t disappoint.  The huge communities of seabirds on larely barren rocks looked impressive as the islands loomed in the haze.  As we got closer, the Pellicans, Penguins, Cormorants and Gulls looked even more impressive - there was hardly any room for any more!  Probably the highlight was the groups of sea lions that lived in their own little groups, each with several smaller females and one single fat male with a big flabby neck!   They took no interest in the boats as they got to within 10 metres of some of them - in fact, we even thought one had passed-away it was so still and on its back until it´s eyes lazily opened and whiskers twitched!

The sea was fairly choppy, although only a couple of people were sick.  We arrived back at Paracas harbour having seen a dolphin hanging around a fishing boat, although it selfishly refused to hang around long enough for us to get a decent photo!!!!

Upon return to the hotel, we then went directly to Pisco and the base of Hands On Disaster Response, an agency we had heard about on the web that was directly working in the City of Pisco, which was almost 80% destroyed (although the whole of Southern Peru "only" had 500 fatalities).   We went straight to work at about 11.30am, starting by helping build a temporary shelter in a cleared-out area of an elderly woman´s former home.   That afternoon, we went to work at the Maratime and Fishing University - we were knocking down walls and clearing the rubble to the courtyard to allow bullodozers and trucks take this away and eventually allow rebuilding work to go ahead.   The officials and staff were there as well, all of them were so grateful to have us there and very welcoming and friendly, although they couldn´t speak any English, we could understand most of what they said and it was a pleasure to meet them all.

It was hard work in very hot and dirty conditions, although it was certainly safe - there was no danger of an roof or supporting walls coming down, which is what stopped us from working on the other side of the building.  Many different nationalities were working with us, many Australians, Yanks, Canadians, Irish, Germans and Dutch.   We finished after a long day of manual work and hailed a 3-wheeled taxi to take us to a "collectivo" pick-up spot by the market.  A collectivo is a ramshackled mini-bus which basically is like a taxi, although it waits to fill-up before heading to the destination marked on the front.  It cost about 25p each to get back to our hotel down the coast!      The hotel felt a whole lot more luxurious when we got back after being caked in mud and dust!

Saturday - A really hard day of work was waiting for us when we got to Pisco at 8am!  We were clearing rubble from some residential properties - it was tough work and the sun was really burning down - oh how we could have done with that fog from Lima to help keep us cool!   It was very sad to find personal effects of the people who lived in the houses (most people had been moved to the camps which contained 30,000 people).  Again, people walking by were really friendly and many stopped to chat and say thankyou.

We were greeted by Mark (Director of Operations)  that lunchtime to be told that we were the 100th and 101st volunteers to make it down to volunteer!  It was nice, but at the same time, it was a bit embarassing to be fussed over as many others had simply given-up their jobs to fly at their own expense to the area for no pay to work basically like labourers.        In the afternoon, we moved to a site just across from where we were in the morning.  Again, it was very hard work in the searing sun.  We finished-up there at 5.30 and headed back to the base.  For anyone interested in how things are going in Pisco, the website is www.hodr.org .  We were both lucky to have very kind and generous friends in the workplace who gave us money as leaving presents - both of us donated this money directly to the project - we know that it is going to a really tightly-run organisation that is doing direct work with the people of Pisco - we are both really grateful for this money and so thankyou all again for this really kind gesture.

Again, we jumped into a collectivo back to Paracas, sadly there was only one seat so Erica had to perch on Jeremy´s lap - even a dog was given a seat!!  Dinner was lovely at the hotel - we learned the lesson to "eat local style", as they arent always that great at pizza or pasta!!

Sunday - Sunday is the HODR day-off (given the work that they do in the week, we couldn´t begrudge them that!!!).  We moved-on further down the coast to Nazca - the trip through Ica showed just how widespread the devastation that the earthquake brought.

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it's just 4 hours away from Lima.  The landscape there is very beautiful. You can also visit the islands and see the wildlife of the Pacific Ocean. The best is going there in our summer (Jan - April).

Watch out! it's always windy

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I am now in Paracas while on a tour of the Southern coast of Peru.  The city might have a couple thousand residents and other than that there is nothing to do here but to work on my blog.  I was originally going to stay in the city of Pisco, but it looked pretty sketchy and my bus driver suggested I come here which is a bit bigger and on the water.

I apparently left my Lonely Planet guide book in my hostal in Lima so now I am relying on the advice of others.  I sketched out the next couple of days of my trip after talking to a few girls who were headed from the south to Lima.  It is amazing how you trust the advice and recommendation of people whose name you don´t know and who you never met before.  After planning my trip, I found out that one was English and the other was Irish and they are both travelling around South America for six months, but I never did learn their names.

Tommorrow, I will be going to Ballestas Islands which are known as the poor man´s Galapogos Islands, followed by a city called Huachachina tomorrow where I can go sandboarding,Nazca on Wednesday morning and Arequippa (Peru´s second largest city) on Wednesday night.  Not really sure how I am getting back to Santiago right now where I have a flight to Dallas from on Saturday night, but hopefully things will work themselves out over the next couple days.

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So we got to Paracas about 7ish, Paracas is a very pretty little place, with lots of little places to eat and drink, and a few shops, we was greeted by a man with walking sticks, selling a bunch of panama hats all on top of each other, but i didnt see anyone really buying his hats lol.

We got put on a giant lookin speed boat and off we sped.  The weather was bloody hot, and we just knew we were gonna get burnt, but the wind was cold, so its one of those you dont know your get burnt days lol.  The boat stopped off by a cliff edge and the bi lingal guide started to tell us about the cliff, "This is the famous candelarbo, made 100years before christ, we dont know what it was for, but its 1 metre deep" i got some decent pictures of the candelarbo, later when we was back at the hostel, i looked in my book and saw the what Rough guide had to say, saying that Von Danikan claimed it was the starter map for the nazca lines etc etc, that or it was to worship the sun god or tree of life, my money is on the last!!

We then took off at fall speed to the Ballestar islandS.  The islands are really small, but for there size there is amazing goings on on them, for instance the amount of bird life on them is huge, there are plenty of rare birds and common birds which live on the islands, we saw so many different breeds, but the most interesting breeds we saw were the Pelicans, Penguins etc, the penguins look so out of place on this semi tropical rock out in the Pacific sea.  Much smaller than what i thought they would look like, they still amazed me. 

We moved a little around the island and finally saw what made the islands so special, Sea Lions!! They are so cute, absolutly sweet, little babies everywhere, and all so lazy looking, just hanging out lyin in the sun, or swimming in the sea, i thought these were just so cute and lovely, and made the trip worth it, we must of seen hundreds of Sea lions, specially on there special beach, where the giant males hang out with the harems of females. 

Also on the trip we saw starfish and bright pink red crabs.  Ok so we didnt see any dolphins or killer whales, but it isnt the right season for seeing them, but it was still fun seeing the sea lions.

We went back to Paracas and had two hours to kill before our mini bus back to Huacachina, so we ended up in a seafood resturant, i had Kingfish, which isnt that fabulous, in fact it hardly has any fish on the fillet, so god knows why its called a kingfish for.  We went for a walk around the beach, not that good, dirty sand and filled with rubbish.  We then got on our mini bus and went back to the hostel, a very fun day out on the boat, and worth the money.  the trip cost us both 80soles. 

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The day began with a boat trip out to La Isla Balciteras out from our hotel.  We saw LOTS of Sea Lions, Blue footed Boobies and PENGUINS!!!!!  I would love to explore those caves. I felt like I should have been a pirate looking for my secret cove or something. On the ride back we admired the sand carvings of the majestic candelabra.  If that is what the Nazca lines will look like, I am waiting with great anticipation for tomorrow's trip.

The afternoon began as a trip down the road to the national preserve park.  Much to our surprise it was a vast land of scalloped sand dunes just waiting to be explored.  We crested many a dune in our not so rugged KIA.  We had many "finds" including fossils mounds, a petrified sea lion, and a recently departed dolphin perched like a sculpture on the beach.

None of us had ever seen such landscape.  It makes me rethink the Paris to Dakkar rally......

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The Ballesta Islands lie a short distance off the Peruvian coast south of Lima, and we made a trip to see them on a speedboat  which in itself was a fun trip over occasionally choppy waters.

On the way to the islands themselves we passed the candelabra, a pattern etched into the sand and rock of a small island not far off the coast.  The guide wasn´t overly helpful in explaining its origins - he said it might be pre-Incan, or a symbol used by Spanish sailors to navigate the waters, or even a mark made by the Masons in the 1800´s.  So anybody´s guess really!

Then we reached the islands and circled around them in the boat for a good length of time,  These islands are a paradise for birds, including a huge number of pelicans and a few rare penguins, and a large colony of sea lions all of which could be seen really close.  We were told that the only time anyone goes onto the island is to collect the huge amount of droppings that collect on the islands (now totally white as a result) every 7 years. Otherwise the animals are left to themselves, and can just admire the daily tourist visits. 

On the way back we were lucky to spot dolphins swimming beside our boat - in all,a great wildlife spotting experience!

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We decided to venture out to the Islas Ballastas aka Poor man´s Galapagos ( poor cause it costs five dollars instead of a couple of hundred dollars to experience it...).

The wildlife was spectacular...hundreds and HUNDREDS of sealions lined the rocky beaches around these small islands...and thousands upon thousands of exotic birds and Penguins. The whole experience was definately an olfactory overload with the sheer quantity of guano (bird poo) that covers...and we think even forms some of these islands...in some places on the islands the guano is meant to reach 50 metres in depth...its hard to believe, but its true! Guano is meant to make a fab fertilizer, and was actually Peru´s number one export during the 19th century...nice.

In the afternoon we went to see the pink flamingos in the Paracas National Reserve, which is one of the driest deserts in the world with less than 2mm of rainfall a year...it´s bizarre because a lot of the coast of Peru seems to be desert...its just weird seeing a desert alongside the ocean...doesn´t seem right somehow. We ended up seeing two tiny pink dots in the far distance...if we used our imagination, we could kinda see that they might be flamingoes.

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