Pisco, Isla Ballestas & Paracas Reserve

From Huacachina we headed to Pisco, a city ravaged by the 2007 earthquake. The city still looked as though the earthquake had just happened; a testament to how bad it must have been 3 years ago. More than 80% of the city was flattened, including the main cathedral. The bus trip from Huacachina to Pisco was unnecessarily complicated; we were literally dropped off at side of the road and took a "collectivo" (cheap taxi) the rest of the way. Our Lonely Planet guide failed us badly with transportation options; and we tried just about every bus company before finally finding one that would take us there for a reasonable price. It all worked out in the end.

Fun fact; there are probably more stray dogs than children in peru, and they are everywhere, including the rooftops, where they chase cars as they drive by.

We refined our barterring skills, and managed to get a deal on both the hostel room and the tours that
we booked for the next day to Isla Ballestas ("Poor Man's Galapagos") and Paracas National Reserve. We went to El Dorado for dinner; a local seafood restaurant with a good reputation. Alex proudly spoke her first spanish sentence; "quiero el ceviche mixta sin cebolla" (I would like the mixed ceviche.. without onions"), and Lisa ordered Pescado Sudado for the thrid time in two days (can't get enough of that dish!). It was a delicious meal, and the fact that the power went out shortly after we got our food (and remained out for the evening) only made the experience more authentic.

We would have liked to take more photographs of Pisco, but since the earthquake the crime in the city has skyrocketed, and it would have been foolish to have the Nikon out.

The next day we went on a tour of Isla Ballestas; we saw penguins, sea lions, pelicans, cormorants, boobies, and so many other species of birds. The islands are of great value to Peru because every 7 years, the extensive layer of guano (cormorant "excrement") is scraped off the islands and sold for an exorbitant price as high-grade fertilizer. Smells fantastic!

Next, we went to visit Paracas National Reserve with it's magnificent desert landscapes. The entire area was once a seabed, and the scorched sand earth (which receives an annual precipitation of 1.8mm) is littered with fossilized shellfish remains. 

Here is a picture of a famous rock monument off the coast of Paracas park; after and before the 2007 earthquake. (F.Y.I. Lisa took the "after" picture, and the "before" picture was on a poster).

We visited the only red sand beach in peru; formed from the adjacent cliff of magnesium carbonate. The beach is protected and you couldn't walk on it, but the colors were unreal.

We stopped at a local fishing village for lunch (also completely devastated by the earthquake and subsequent 7meter-high tsunamis). Like much of the area, destroyed buildings haven't been removed; they are either just left as skeletons, or have been built onto (or inside of). It's a bit eerie.

The harbor was littered with fishing boats; more boats that we could count people in the village in fact. We're not sure where everyone was.

Local restuarant would toss their fish scraps out the backdoor, and groups of eager (and vicious) pelicans would wait impatiently at the back (or front) doors.

From Pisco we headed back up to Lima to catch our flight to Cuzco. We stayed in yet another amazing hostel (Hostal Espana) in downtown Lima; a huge hostel built in a 400-year old converted colonial mansion. There we marble pillars, chandeliers, paintings (originals!) everywhere, huge ceilings, original hardwood floors, and statues everywhere. We paid $8US each for this huge private room!

We flew from Lima to Cuzco on Peruvian airlines (on a brand-new plane!), and arrived safely in Cuzco yesterday. We spent the day exploring the city and tomorrow we head off on our 5-day trek of the Sacred Valley and the Inca Trail up to Macchu Picchu!



Huaraz & Huacachina

We arrived  in Huaraz (2.5 hours late) from our night bus, after another terrible sleep. We had planned on going for a trek to Lake 69 that day, but arrived too late. Trine, from Norway, approached us and asked if we'd go mountain biking with her, so for lack of a better plan we went for it. She was really good at bartering so we hired a local guide and 3 full-suspension mountain bikes (best idea ever) and set off.

The car broke down a few times on the way up into the mountains, so we had to walk for awhile. The driver was crazy, and Lisa had to ask him to slow down around the cliff-corners, but he thought this was pretty funny, and sped up instead. We were not impressed, so he eventually slowed down a bit. No wonder their cars break down all the time here, Peruvians drive like maniacs.

The cab dropped us off at the top of a pass, and we kept climbing for 2 hours. We are not in shape for mountain biking at all, and it was a challenge. We biked through farms, small villages and Andean countryside.

We dodged barking guard dogs (strategy; slow and steady, but don't get off your bike), pigs, vehicles, cows... and descended back down to Huaraz, 5 hours later. We were beyond sore at this point, because although the bikes were great, the seats were NOT. Enough said. It was a great experience though.

Needless to say, we were far to sore to do the full-day high-altitude trek to Lake 69 the next morning, so we opted for the "tamer" Lake Llaca trek instead. We hired another driver for the day, and another friend from the hostal, Maike (from Germany) split the taxi fare with us ($16 each, for a full day!). The road up to the trailhead (1.5 hour drive) was less of a road, and more of a rocky, switchback hiking trail wide enough for a car. Alex is pretty sure this trip will cure her car-sickness, because nothing in Canada will ever compare to the roads we've been on here. The car broke down again, but we're getting used to this by now. Luckily we were next to a glacial stream, so the driver just poured ice water over the engine until it cooled down, and we kept going.

Lake Llaca was at 4800 meters, and we proved how unpredictable altitude sickness can be. Alex and Maike really felt the altitude here, but Lisa couldn't feel it at all, which is suprising because this was the same altitude as Cotopaxi, where Lisa barely made it up.

We enjoyed our left-over Chinese food picnic at the top (because once again, $3 of chinese food can realistically serve 3 people here).

We took another night bus from Huaraz to Lima, but this time we "splurged" ($20) on reclining bus seats "bus cama". It was worth every penny and got a decent sleep, but the rapid altitude change had our ears popping all night. We switched buses in Lima and headed straight for Ica, 5 hours south. From there we took a cab ($1) to the nearby village (200 people) of Huacachina, a desert oasis, and gringo playground.

Alex hiking up a dune, with Huacachina in the background

 We shopped around for the cheapest dune-buggying/sand-boarding option, and set up a tour in the evening.
There is no way to describe the experience. The dune-buggying was sort of like a rollercoaster.

Look twice: it's a bit hard to tell but we are headed pretty
much "head-first" down a sand dune in the dune-buggy

We tried sandboarding "snowboard-style" but discovered that going down on your stomach, head first, was way more fun, because you could get going way faster. We played around in the dunes until sunset then headed back to Huacachina.

One more interesting story:

There was an earthquake here last night (5.9 on the Richter scale)! You can read more about it on the links below, but it happened around 3:00am, and was centered at Chincha, about an hour away from us. The quake woke us up, but it took us a while to realize what was going on. The bunk beds were rocking, and car alarms went off in the street, but nothing was damaged where we are, and we are safe! It was a bit scary, but really interesting as neither of us have experienced a quake before. We've noticed that a lot of the building here have signs indicating where you should move to in case of an earthquake... we'll start taking note of these from now on!

News story 1

News story 2

We're off to Pisco, then Lima on the 23rd. We booked a flight from Lima to Cuzco because there have been bus strikes happening and a few fellow travellers haven't been able to get to Cuzco on time. It works well because it's about 24 hours on a bus from Lima to Cuzco, and the flight was only $100, and takes less than 1 hour.

Loja, Chiclayo and Huanchaco

Not much to report from Loja. The plan was... we're not sure what the plan was... but it was raining so we mostly camped out in the internet cafe. Do you like our new map?

[crooked] Loja city gates

From Loja we took a night bus to Piura, Peru, including a 4am border crossing. Not at all like Canada-US borders. They weren't concerned in the least about your bags... actually... they didn't even say 2 words to us. We even filled out different customs forms? Who knows what was going on. We arrived around 6:30am to Piura and were hit with a whole new [unexpected] wave of culture shock. Bus terminals in Peru are set up differently; there aren't regional and international bus terminals like in Ecuador, rather each bus company (and there are MANY) has it's own terminal, and operates services to different places. You have to do is figure out where you are going, which company goes there, and where their terminal (not their ticket office) is.

Note the extensive damage on every taxi; a testament to the driving habits around here

From Piura we decided to keep going to Chiclayo. When you've spent 16 of the past 24 hours on buses, you aren't up to a whole lot. We checked out the massive market in Chiclayo, and then retreated to yet another incredible hostel - Hostel Amigos Chiclayo for an early night. Some of the most interesting sightings at the market;

- A woman carrying around a screaming kitten tied up in a plastic bag. A local told us it might have been destined for the dinner table.

- The market was about 4 city blocks, squared. Our goal was to find the witches market, which (according to 3 different sources) was in there somewhere, but after several laps we gave up.

Lisa wanted to take pictures desperately, but it just wasn't safe to bring out the big Nikon (we were attracting way too much attention as it was), and we'd forgotten to put memory card in the little camera (again).

The landscape between Piura and Chiclayo

Local "taxis" are more like dirt bikes turned into small carriages.

The poverty of Peru is very evident in some places

From Chiclayo we headed to Trujillo, 3 hours south. The landscape in Northern Peru was completely unexpected for us. It's a desert! Who knew? However, it was nice change after the Ecuador buses to drive along a flat road, in a straight line, without stopping every 2 minutes to pick up locals who flag the buses down. We too, started flagging buses down in Trujillo - it's what you do here. We took a Cambio (micro-bus/shared taxi) to Huanchaco, a small surfing village on Peru's north coast. It's what you'd expect from a surfing village, but with Salsa Discoteques (open until the sun rises) instead of bars. We learnt to dance Salsa and had a blast practicing our skills until early morning.



Huanchaco beach



Two little boys had a blast playing with the Nikon (while Lisa held onto the strap firmly)

We visisted the Chan Chan ruins, which were quite grand, an unbelievably huge. We pretty much had the place to ourselves because it's low season here.

Note: after 3 weeks of spending 24hours a day together, we are still getting along fabulously.



Some of the Chan Chan ruins with Andes in the background

We then spent the afternoon learning to surf with our instructor, Carlos. We have pictures of us surfing, but you'll have to wait because we are having issues uploading them from the waterproof camera. For some reason, a whole crowd of local mothers kept trying to get pictures of their children with us. It was cute at the begining, but not 20 pictures later. We found (for the first time) a self-serve laundromat, and decided our clothes could use a real wash (sinks only do so much). Simple pleasures! (Note the appropriate Macchu Picchu mural in our hostel room!)

Alex enjoying warm, lovely-smelling laundry. You have no idea how excited this made us.



The food in Peru so far has been incredible. Above is some Pescado Sudado (literally "sweated fish") which was out of this world good (and for $4 too!). It a typical speciality of Peruvian cuisine. We tried Pisco too!

We are off on yet another night bus to Huaraz, in the Cordillera Blanca.