Ola!

Being on the road for about 2 months backpacking is becoming our way of life: searching for a place to sleep every few nights, the everyday struggle to eat as balanced as possible (sometimes great and healthy food, sometimes the usually safe and tasty ´pollo con fritas´ at one of the millions ´pollerias´), the hunt for good deals with everything you buy, the constant alertness not to be ripped-off and the attitude not to care too much about others (when necessary we learned to be rude as well)...

Still, as we wrote last time, after our Amazon expedition, we really appreciated the luxury of a city, in this case Arequipa. Arequipa is an apparently rich town with great shops, old narrow streets, colourful buildings, and.... no attacks on tourists with Inca massages or other exotic stuff (what a relief after Cusco). We had a great hostal there with a room with a view and our won Evita balcony, just one block from the Plaza de Armas. Not bad to sit in your own balcony drinking a bottle of wine, watching the sun go down spreading beautiful light over the city and its protectors, Mount Chachani and Mount Misti. We can only agree with Inca Mayta Capac when he exclaimed ´Are quepay´ which means ´Yes, stay here´

. So we did (at least for a couple of days).

After Arequipa we thought we saw pretty much of the landscapes of Southern Peru, but we were wrong... After the highlands of Machu Picchu, the humid lowlands of the Amazon bassin, now we found ourselves in the middle of the desert. Only sand, rocks and dunes... In the middle of this desert is Nasca. Close to this gringo town are the worldfamous Nasca lines, enigmatic lines drawn by the Nazca culture between 200 BC and 700 AD. As these lines are huge and only visible from the air, we hopped on a little 5-passenger Cessna plane and we had a bumpy but impressive flight over the lines. We saw all these almost extraterrestrial figures (yep, Paul, here they finally are...), including the astronaut, the condor, the alcatraz, the tree, the parrot, etc... Amazing with what kind of precision the figures are drawn and how they are still untouched after being there for centuries! The purpose of the lines is still a mystery, which makes it even more interesting! By the way, we strong people didn´t need the ´sickbags´ and kept our food inside (3 older but tough Peruvians didn´t though...), although also our stomachs made some strange noises...

Our stomachs still being a little upset after the flight we moved to Paracas, a little town on the coast. There we hoped to visit the National Reserve. But unfortunately it turned that this was only possible with a guided tour witch are pretty expensive and our budget not let it now we decided to visit the Galapagos Islands...(thankseveryone for your advice!). Except this, a pretty ´shitty´ night (damn, was it the Chinese food again!!!???)kept us from going away further then a few blocks from the hostal. After a still a pretty relaxing afternoon at Paracas beach, we decided to move on to Lima. Paracas was not really what we expected....

After the slight deception of Paracas, we moved to the capital of Peru - Lima. This huge city was again a different world. We stayed in the fancy, sleek, Miami- style, suburb of Miraflores. This suburb was definitely for the happy few in Lima and maybe all of Peru... Although it was not the best sample of Lima probably, we still enjoyed the safe and relaxed surroundings. And above all Miraflores had a great seaside promenade situated high on the cliffs. It truly had a Miami-like feel! Not quite what we expected to find in Lima! As we saw the almost surreal and and glamourous part of Lima one day, the other day we went downtown Lima, which takes about an hour by bus... speaking of contrasts... old buildings, grey colours, overcrowded streets, exhaust gasses of the old- fashioned busses which make your breath stop and nose hurt, but on the other side the historic centre of Lima had great squares (Plaza de Armas), churches and cafes. The historic centre is the bouncing heart of Lima, the real life of the ordinary people. Besides hanging around we had a mission in Lima... and that was to prove that our bank was wrong. In Bolivia the robbers also took our vaccination passports and Linas bankcard. According to the bank it was not possible to send the new card to Lima. But we proved otherwise! We picked up our new passports and Linas new bankcard from the airport´s postoffice, and we are 100% up to strenght! (dankjewel, mam, voor alle moeite!!).

After spending a few days in Lima and accomplishing our mission, we missed the mountains again and moved to Huaraz - Kathmandu of the Andes. The first impression of Huaraz was not particularly good. It is an uninspiring new town, not that strange after the earthquake in the 1970s which killed out 70.000 people in the region and destroyed most of the historical buildings... After acclimatizing and getting used to the altitude again (Lima 145m vs Huaraz 3100m), and a preparational walk to the surrounding hills, we were ready for the real thing: Parque National Huascaran! The next day we took a collectivo (shared taxi, for the price of a busride...) to the village of Llupa, a traditional village high in the Andes with only indigenous (Quechua) people living their lives. It´s so good to notice that the locals in their own environment are sooo friendly to gringos like us (in contrast to the indigenous people living in the towns!) This is Peru at its best!!! From Llupa we walked about an hour to the next ´village´ called Pitec. And from we started the hike to Laguna Churup situated at an altitude of 4500m. The hike consisted of some true hardcore rock climbing. (Note: the information office told us ´you just have to climb a wall, and that´s all...´).We never heard an understatement like that! Probably the chicas working there never made the hike up there themselves....

Except the rough route and the climbing we also had to deal with the altitude. Literally, it was a breathtaking way up! After 4 hours of hiking we were rewarded with the laguna. Wow, what a beauty, with the snowtopped mountains within our reach. The way down was maybe even more streneous. But we managed to stay on our 2 feet, besides the inevitable few occasional slip and slide- manoeuvres... Back in Huaraz we ate and drank like we didn´t get any ´comido´ the whole week!!!

Time to relax

. In Huanchaco, a fishing village close to the city of Trujillo, in northern Peru, we did nothing else but hanging around on the beach, watch Peruvians go crazy by the sea, sleep, and eat ´cebiche´(a Peruvian dish consisting of cold white fish with red unions marinated in limejuice). Huanchaco is our last ´real´ stop in Peru. From here we will continue our way North to Ecuador (via Piura).

Hasta luego!!!