Day Seven - Nazca Lines

Even though we could have stayed at the beautiful hotel in Ica we had to move on. We had a feast of a breakfast with our Canadian friends before we packed the car up and were on our way to Nazca.

Hitting Nazca (or Nasca)

A few roundabouts and absolutely crowded roads later we were back on the Americana highway flying solo with the occasional slow truck that we had to pass, especially going up the windy hilly roads, and down them for that matter.

All along the roads there were heaps and heaps of monuments, crosses and flowers, so many people died on these roads that it's a wonder how we haven't seen more accidents.

The highway used to be a dirt track that only the bravest of drivers would go on so we were assuming that that's where most of the deaths originated from.

Cruising along we went past a few small towns, every house it seems is unfinished with rebar still protruding from the roof, this apparently is so they pay less tax on their 'unfinished' house, you'd think the government would have cottoned on to this loop hole but no, the towns one after the other still look like they're all under construction.

A view of the Nazca Lines from the tower

Heading into Nazca we stopped at a tower so we could check out the Nazca Lines that are believed to be made by aleins, believed by us anyway.

They are said to be around 1600 years old which is pretty impressive, we only got to see two of the 'drawings' in the sand, unless you went up in a small plane, but Adam wasn't too keen on the flying idea, the planes did look very small and they seem to be flying all over the place.

If the Peruvians fly like they drive I was happy to be on land for this one.

We arrived at our hotel safe and sound, apart from one truck nearly taking us out (but that's ok, he gave us a wave) and us trying to do a u-turn in the middle of the freeway and the damn gear wouldnt go in reverse so I could do a quick 3 point turn and of course a truck is heading toward us!

We parked the car in the hotel garage and settled in for the day. 

Catching some zzz's in the sun

With a 9 hour drive tomorrow we decided to take it fairly easy, so we pulled up a sun lounger and had a nap and watched a few eps on the iPad. Over the fence we could hear what sounded like a festival so we ventured out to investigate, turned out to be a music festival inside a restaurant that was full of Peruvians so we thought we'd better leave them to it. 

We had the whole restaurant to ourselves

We had some lunch and then parked ourselves back in the hotel for the rest of the day. We made an awesome pillow bed with the multitude of pillows that they supplied us with and did some research on our upcoming Brazil leg of the holiday. 

A big dinner of Peru's finest cuisine and then it was off to bed to catch up on some Zzz's as it's up at 6am tomorrow morning ahead of our big 9 hour drive through the hills to Cusco and then we hit the tracks on the Inca Trail on Tuesday!

Day Six - Off road, haven & dune buggies

Up bright and early today we went down to get some breakfast at the hotel restaurant. Try ordering breakfast with no menus and the waiter doesn't speak English, and then try to order cereal, a nightmare!

An example of a main street

But we got there in the end with a lot of demonstrating I got served up some cornflakes with some weird mango smoothie to use as milk and we also got some scrambles eggs, a bread basket with some jam and a little bowl of fruit, we didn't do too badly.

We got picked up at 7:45am and got dropped off at the Paracas pier to go on our bird tour, while we were waiting in line a Peruvian was trying to drum up a bit of cash by feeding pelicans, he has them perfectly trained to jump up on a ledge, have someone sit next our them and then pose for a photo... What people wouldn't do for a quick buck.

About 15 minutes of waiting a man come out and said that the bird tour is off due to high seas, fair enough, I don't want to be on a boat in rough seas but it was still disappointing, so it was back in the car and back to the hotel.

Was good fun riding around in these bad boys

We packed up our things well ahead of schedual now and headed to our next port of call, Ica, a small little town in the middle of no where, and that's exactly where we ended up.

Some advice to you all, never follow a GPS when it says to turn down a lonely deserted dirt road, it will only lead to bad things, like nearly getting bogged in sand going up a hill, getting hopelessly lost to the point of asking a few locals.

Luckily our spanish is getting a lot better and from what we were told we made our way back to the hotel but damn, that was scary!

The Peruvian desert

A few turns in the right direction and we found our hotel, stepping through the doors we were greeted by a stunning pool surrounded by flowering jasmine and beautiful gardens, it was a little piece of heaven amidst the dust and chaos. 

So we laid by the pool for the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, soaking up sunshine, making friends with some Canadians and eating our way through a well deserved ham and cheese sandwich until we had to pry ourselves away to go and tackle the dune buggies, although it already felt like we'd done a bit of that already today.

The dune buggies was located in what looked like a mirage, a big lake surrounded by restaurants and shops. We found our tour guide and he loaded us into our buggie, we buckled our seat belts and away we went. 

The first 15 minutes was like going on a roller coaster, up huge sand dunes and then over top at lightening speeds until we heard a thud and then a lot of cranks... The damn buggy was buggered.

A view from our hotel pool

So we waited about 10 mins for another one to come and pick us up, and it did but then it dropped us at the top of a dune and drove off again, thankfully there was a family on the same buggy as us and she translated everything so we weren't totally in that dark to what was happening. 

Half an hour passes with us waiting around until another buggy come up full of people and they started getting some boards out and boarding down the dunes, it looked like so much fun but with so many reports of injuries using them we didn't was to risk it with the Inca trail coming up so we just watched. 

Another 20 mins past and by this time the sun had gone down and it had gotten bitterly cold (estoy Friao!), waiting waiting and finally we got picked up only to be taken to the top of another higher dune for people to board down, by to his point we were a shivering mess as the sun was completely gone and the wind had picked up, it took them another 15 mins to all get to the bottom and then we were off! 

The lovely Huacachina lagoon

It was so weird going up and down dunes in the dark, we couldn't see a thing so I don't know how the driver did it, never the less we made it back in one piece.

We survived (only just) the taxi ride back to our Villa and tucked into dinner with our favourite Canadians and then retired to bed for some more well deserved sleep.

Day Five - Onward to Paracas!

Today we checked out of Lima and onto not so greener pastures.. After leaving the hotel we jumped in a taxi and got dropped off about 4 blocks up at Hertz. A long process later and we were pulling out of the driveway still trying to find our next hotel on the GPS, no address found, no hotel found.

Our beast of a car

Hmm, luckily we stopped out the front of a building that had wifi and we found a hotel next to ours that come up on the GPS, phew!

After reading a lot of bad reports on driving in Peru we found it quite easy, the other drivers are very helpful, the roads are fine, it was a bit of a worry when we read that the cops love pulling over foreigners and taking bribes of up to $200 off you and that trucks will overtake other trucks on a bend with no concern for any oncoming traffic!

But once you know the hierarchy on the road with buses being #1, taxis #2 and then the rest of us fight it out of for whatever space we can get, it all works out.

3 1/2 hours later we arrived at our hotel in Paracas, the scenery along the way was desert, sand, the ocean and a lot of quaint little houses, some a little worse for wear and others more like oversized kennels minus the pitched roof as it never rains here.

The hotel was amazing, our porter took our bags up 3 flights of stairs, walked us into our rooms and swung the balcony doors open which overlooked the huge pool and the ocean, it was a spectacular view.

The sun was going down so we thought we would go for a walk along the beach and watch the sunset, we found an old life saving chair so we climbed on up and got a magical view of the sun disappearing behind the ocean.

On the walk home we got invited into a little restaurant for happy hour in which we ended up giving the 2 young waiters a little lesson in Australia and showing them photos on the phone from a few AFL games, some kangaroos and Sydney but the photo they loved the most was of our cat Lily climbing on top of the fridge, it really got them going!

Back to the hotel now for a quick bite and it's off to bed after a long day of driving and exploring, we'll be up very early in the morning for a bird tour on board a boat!

Last day in Lima

We started our day heading out to the ruins for a quick tour and learnt a lot about the ancient Peruvians back in 400 AD, that's a damn long time ago!

They made their structures out of mud mixed with shells and pebbles and shaped them into bricks and then stacked them using the 'bookshelf' method which was so strong that it withstood an earthquake that flattened half of Lima's more modern buildings.

It was quite an interesting tour about what they ate, how before the built each building they made a human sacrifice, weird, and we got to see how they grew all their plants and raised pet Lamas to help carry things and keep them warm with their wool.

Then we headed over to the Parque del Amour which means the Park of Love, the name may have something to do with a giant statue of a guy spooning a girl in the middle of the park, not sure I understand the Peru way of things but hey, whatever rocks their boat.

After we finished relaxing in the shade of the spooning statue we headed to the biggest mall in Peru, it was quite amazing considering it was built into the cliff over looking the ocean form every window.

We had a wander around and found ourselves at a restaurant that had us sitting out enjoying the views of the coast, it was quite peaceful.

Once we finished out delicious sandwiches we ended up finding a bowling alley, a few language barrier problems later we were on the lanes, we tried to get a best of 3 but with only 30 mins we only got out 2 games, which we came a draw, but we'll give this one to Adam as he floored it in the last game with nearly all spares and strikes.

Getting a bit excited now we spotted a cinema, for those of you who don't know, we go to a cinema in  nearly every town/city/country we go to, what can I say it relaxes me and I love to see how other countries do it and Peru gets all high marks except for the annoying subtitles that I can't turn off! 

Day Three - Lima by bike

Today was our first full day on our trip and we kicked things off feeling pretty tired having woke up several times at night due to jet lag.

We got up around 6am and went and enjoyed a Peru breakfast, which turned out to be pretty much the same as the ones we have at home. Eggs, toast, cereal, coffee and juice but with a few new delicacies like pink bread and quinoa cereal.

Our plan for today was a 3.5hr bike tour of Lima at 9:45am, but given we got up so early we decided to go for a walk and check out some festivities, we tried to get into the apple shop but they seemed to have some issues with a rather loud alarm going off inside so we settled for radio shack, unfortunately for us the USB charger we bought there is a dud and doesn't charge anything!

It was time to head to the bike tour place, which was only 2 doors down from our hotel, we met a nice couple from sydney who we got chatting with, as well as a dude named James who was from Birmingham, England who was super nice. Plus a group of about 7 Americans who were pretty loud.

The bike ride was great fun. We toured around three of the districts in Lima including Miraflores, Barranca and Chirrillos. We stopped several times for the instructor to teach us a bit of history, he was a pretty good guide considering he had only been working there for 5 weeks but we scored big time as he is a history major who is applying for Comumbia University next years, so we got the rundown of everything there is to do with Limas long history.

On the way back we stopped by an quaint old restaurant and soaked in some local cuisines which included one off the nicest ham sandwiches of all time. After a few close calls on the bike, including nearly taking out a little kid, it was back to the office to drop the bikes off. The guide was really nice and gave us a map highlighting special spots to see around the city.

So we decided to follow the map and go on a big walk, which turned out to be ideal training for the Inca Trail next Tuesday. We checked out an old ruins site which was over 1500yrs old, a famous Olive Garden full of row after row of ancient olive trees, a few nice parks and some local markets where picked up an amazing lama wool blanket which is sure to come in handy on the freezing nights at altitude and a soft warm scarf all for the low price of $22, safe to say I will be back!

After all that walking we stopped for a coffee at a random cafe in the middle of nowhere. The weird thing was we saw James from the tour walk by, we only knew a whole of 3 people in the whole of Lima and to see him walk past was very weird, another weird fact was that the Sydney couple that we met were on the same flight as us going into Santiago, it's a very small world!

By now we had walked about 10km and rode 16km on the bike, plus it was real sunny and we were both burnt to the shitter. All in all it was an awesome day, but by night we were pretty tired, especially with a bit of jet lag added in.

We decided to go back to The Corner Bar, the sports bar we went to last night for tea. They Game 4 of Oklahoma City and San Antonio playing so we watched that then headed back to catch some Zzz's as we have a big day planned for tomorrow.

We Have Touchdown!

After boarding the plane to Santagio we took our seats in premium economy and man what a difference a little extra leg room makes!

The small things like getting a drink and hot towel just after you sit down and having all your (very delicious) meals prepared for you and delivered on a nice white table cloth just made you feel a bit special.

How will we ever go economy ever again?

A few too many tv shows and movies later we arrived in Santiago, not before the stunning views of the snow capped mountains, and then had the task of finding the connecting LAN check in desk.

30 minutes later we found the desk, checked in, went and got some Starbucks (nice to have my favourite yogurt and granola again!) and waited for our plane to Lima.. And waited.. And waited.

We ended up taking off nearly 2 hours after we were meant to, apparently South Americans are known for their tardiness, this is becoming quite evident.

4 hours of interrupted sleep later we arrive at Lima, we found the nicest taxi driver who drove us in mad traffic where we nearly crashed a few times and had many close calls, yes we will be driving in a hire car here in a few days.

I'm preparing for the worst! Although, if we can drive in Rome, then Peru should be a piece of cake.

We settled into our hotel which has the biggest bed I have ever seen, seriously it's huge, then we headed out to the local sports bar to watch the NBA playoffs which was much like being in America again, burgers and burritos and a few more beers (a very nice Peruvian beer called Cusqueńa)

With only a few hours of sleep for the whole day we decide to call it a night and head for our giant bed as we have a full day of bike riding tomorrow and we both look like zombies sitting there trying to watch the NBA with sleep on our minds.

Day One - The Night Before

Day one of our travels saw us being dropped at the shuttle bus, not before a quick coffee and cake with mum (Leanne), and it was all systems go to Sydney. 

Arriving at the airport 3 hours early we thought we were in for a long wait, we hauled our bags to the self check in only to be asked if we would like to go on an earlier flight... hmm wait around the airport for 3 hours or get on a plane in half an hour... We obviously took the latter and we were boarding, seated and in the air within 45 mins, love Qantas.

While on the plane we met a very interesting guy who works for 3M (yes they make post it's) he travels all around Australia making sure all their suppliers are happy, what a life! He seems to have travelled about as much as us which made for great conversation, the flight went that quick it felt like we had only taken off when the pilot announced our decent into Sydney.

After landing our bags were waiting for us at the carousel, the shuttle bus to our airport hotel was only a 5 minute wait and within 10 minutes we were in our room, if the rest of our flights run this smoothly we will be laughing!

The Carlton V Adelide match was in full swing so we headed to the Rydges sports bar to watch the last half, what's that? A Sydney bar doesn't have the AFL, surprise surprise, luckily for us the ipad is loaded with 'Foxtel Go' so we can watch any live tv wherever we are.

This created a bit of an audience, we met a nice ex military man who used to live in Newlyn who also follows Carlton, what are the odds! Tony was on his way to do the Kokoda Trail, a brave man who wanted to really experience what times would have been like for a solider back in the days where choppers and medics were non existent.

We had a great old time talking with Tony, he has done everything from driving trucks on African farms, to coaching an under 18's AFL team called Pennant Hills in Sydney, he got right into the nail biter of a game with Carlton only just scraping through for the win after a few close calls, by 5pts.

After a burger and a few rounds of beer, thanks Tony, we headed to our very swanky hotel to watch Fed's first round game at Roland Garros and catch up on episode 5 of Derek, then for some well deserved Zzz's before our long haul of a flight to Lima tomorrow.

Itinerary

This time next week we will be somewhere over the South Pacific Ocean on our way through to Lima, with a stopover at Santiago in Chile. It is getting pretty exciting with less than 7 days to go now!

The final itinerary will be released on Friday by Fanatics for the Brazil trip so once that has been announced we will know the hotels we are staying at and what activities we will be doing. But most of the itineraries for the other countries we are visiting are now in place.

Below are the cities we will be visiting and how many nights we are spending at each, we will also be doing a little roadie to soak in a bit of the countryside while we're in Peru, must remember to pack the post it notes to stick on the dash so I remember what side of the road to drive on!

Peru

Nothing says a holiday like a little road trip to the middle of nowhere

• Lima (3)
• Paracas (1)
• Ica (1)
• Nazca (1)
• Cusco (3)
• Inca Trail (3)

Argentina

• Buenos Aires (3)

Brazil

• Rio de Janeiro (4)
• Cuiaba (3)
• Porto Alegre (4)
• Florianopolis (3)
• Curitiba (2)

Chile

• Santiago (3)

Success!

After weeks checking and checking again and getting nothing but an 'in progress' status, our visas are now 'ready for collection' whoo hoo! Now all we have to do is wait for a call from the friendly folk at the Brazilian Visa Company in Melbourne and do yet another mad dash to pick our precious passports up that are, hopefully, all stamped, approved and ready to go.

Not long now!

Only 11 more days until we pile ourselves into the car and head off to South America... Hopefully... The planning of the trip was going along quite smoothly until we run into some issues with the Brazilian consulate in Canberra, talk about rude!

So we had a list about a mile long on what we needed to supply to the consulate to obtain our visas for Brazil, it was quite an invasive list of demands, copies of our itinerary, flights, match tickets, bank statements, who we're staying with and we had to send our passports to them as well which is always a bit ify when sending through the post.

 All was going well until we got all our information sent back to us, with no visa attached and only a few weeks to go until we leave, apparently we didn't supply them with enough information about our world cup match tickets. Email after email (they don't have a phone number to call) we got nowhere, so with only 10 days to go we had a mad dash to Melbourne to get an express 10 day turnaround Visa, fingers crossed we can pick it up next week with only 3 days until we leave.. Cutting that one fine.

 Stay tuned to see how this turns out....