Peru: buses, desert & sand equals fun for one & all........

As the title alludes to I am in Peru at the moment. We took a 4 hour bus followed by an 8 hour bus to cross the border between Ecuador and Peru. We spent our time in Cuenca as our last city in Ecuador and it was really nice, spanish colonial buildings and Panama Hats.

I now have a new appreciation for buses and the distances travelled in Australia on them. As I go further into our Peruvian Adventures thus far you will see that buses are a feature.

Piuru was our first city in Peru. Literally built on the sand. We spent our day shopping and chillaxing around the main drag and in our hostel aptly named Hostal California. We found in the local mall a clothing brand called Doo Australia. We now have a team travel top with that spread across the front with a VW Van & a kangaroo in the background, who says that I have no national pride? Anyways we headed from Piuru to Lima on a 15 hour overnight bus. However, these buses are more like planes, in that there are classes (first and second), reclining chairs and meals served (although they are the same sub par standard plane food usually is).

Lima is a big, dirty city, but we didn´t hate it. We stayed in the suburb called Miraflores, which was nice first in a cheap hostel and then in a nicer one for a reason I will reveal shortly. For our first afternoon we wandered the streets to the sea front where there is a massive shopping centre built into the cliff, it was nice but more like the Manuka of Lima so our money stayed put. That evening we decided that the local shopping centre had some nice deli food for a cheap meal we could eat at the hostel whilst we were watching a movie.

My mistake was choosing chicken fried rice. I was up at 2am with the results of food poisoning that lasted till about 8am. This is the reason we had to relocate as the hostel we were currently at had only one bathroom. I spent the rest of that day in bed feeling horrible and sleeping. Bron & Jane were excellent nurses. It took me the next 3 or so days to start to feel ok again. We went into Central Lima the next morning when I was feeling a bit better to see the changing of the gaurd at the government building. As we were heading in we were confronted by a large demonstration that we had to navigate to continue to our destination. As a result we think when we reached the central square there were riot police everywhere and even a water cannon. We asked the Police if it was safe and they laughed a yes at us, but as there were other ¨white-ies¨(as Bron has coined) around we stayed and it was fine, the demonstration never made it to us, whatever that means...

We left Lima on a 5 hour bus heading to Ica, yet another city in the desert built ontop of the sand. We actually stayed in an oasis called Huacachina which was literally a small backpacker town built near a lake in the middle of the desert. We went out on the dunes in a buggee, taking the dunes like a rollercoaster and went sand boarding tomboggan style, it was awesome fun. Watched the sun set over the dunes, then had happy hour and dinner back at our hostel.

I am currently in Nazca. Bron & I flew over the Nazca Lines this afternoon, it was pretty cool. This one was one of my favourites.

Right now I am waiting for yet another bus, an overnight one that will take 10ish hours or so Arequipa, which is a city futher south & our last stop before Cuzco and Maccu Picchu. Again I point out my new appreciation for buses and long haul road transport.

The Galapagos Islands, a land unto themselves

Hola amigos,

The Galapagos Islands are amazing, so, so very cool!!!!! We saw so many animals and within like 30cm of us.

I was swimming with sea lions, penguins, two swam with me for a little while before darting off in the water near Chinese Hat Island, sea turtles, saw one like within 20cm of my face feeding on algae in the water in Post Office Bay after we had deposited our postcards and picked up some to deliver, sting rays (spotted eagle rays and golden rays in large schools), white tipped reef sharks within a couple of metres, marine iguanas both in the water and warming themselves on the rocks.

When we were onland we were with land iguanas, blue footed boobies, albatross, sea lions, and giant tortoises and many more species that now escape me.

The Galapagos Islands are THE BEST PLACE EVER!!!!!!

The boat that we travelled between islands on was called the Yolita II, a luxury first class boat that we booked like four days before it left at a bargain price, :). Our guides changed halfway through, the first one was a dick that even the crew had a hard time pretending to get aling with which made life interesting. However the second one who we had for our last 4 days, Washington, was pretty cool. He made the boat much more fun and relaxed. I asked about the chances of seeing some dolphins, he said that it was not so likely during the daylight hours and he gave me a dolphin watch instead.


The giant tortoises were also really cool, we saw them at a local farm on teh first day gorging themeselves on all the grass and plants they could find. On the last day before we flew out we spent the morning at the Charles Darwin Research Centre, where we saw Lonesome George, the last of his subspecies from one of the islands, which is pretty sad. i can let you know though he is living last days up in style with two ladies of another subspecies in his inclosure to keep him company.

We really didn´t want to leave the islands, however the movement of the sea did get to me by the last couple of nights, so being off the boat is kind of nice. I definitely reccommend that if anyone gets the chance to come to the Galapagos Islands the money that you pay is nothing in comparison to the priceless experiences that await you!!!!

We are in Cuenca at the moment (pronounced Quenca), a really cool city in the south of Ecuador. Bron and Jane have bought Panama hats which were super fun to buy. We also found like the best ice cream ever from a place called Freddo something something, I have already had 3 scoops today, mmmmmmmmmm (good icecream is hard to find in south america it seems and this is only the second place to tempt me into having it :)).

Tomorrow we are probably going to set off to Peru, so that will make for a large quantity of time on the bus. We were trapped on one last night heading into Cuenca, on mountainous sections of a national park, a section of single road and masses of traffice made the trip take like 2 more hours ontop on the 4ish that it was already going to take. We had to pull out some emergency chocolate and road the sugar high whilst listening to awesome disco hits from the 70´s and 80´s playing on the bus system. Once we arrived at like 9pm we had awesome pizza though near our hostel for dinner at like 10pm, which made it all better.