Lima

Plaza Mayor

Robyn trying to figure out where Parque 7 de Junio is. We never found it.

Miraflores surf

It´s big. It´s grey. It´s flat. It´s noisy. And its our final stop. Phew! We need a holiday!

Islas Ballestas

The ´Candelabra´

´Humble´ Penguins

There´s something Alfred Hitchcockish about this pic

Pelican having none of it

Sea lion chilling

Millions of birds

´The poor mans Galapagos islands´ apparently. The Galapagos Islands must be heck of an impressive. We took a ride about 10km offshore to the spectacle that is the Ballestas Islands. Something I had been looking forward to for quite some time. And they did not disappoint.

They´re a small group of islands literally infested with all types of sea birds and sea life. Pelicans, petrels, penguins, gulls, vultures(yes!). The first thing that hits you upon arrival (other than the sheer spectacle of umpteen flocks of different types of birds circling and passing the islands simultaneously. It´s like the bird equivalent of Heathrow airport) is the smell. Bird poo. Guano. Apparently so much of it that it helped Peru out of a recession in the mid 1900´s as some clever dick discovered that guano was the secret and vital ingredient in a certain type of fertilizer. Nice work.

Sandboarding in Huacachina

Looking like a plonker

Robyn dropping in

These dune buggies were CRAZY and probably even more of a rush than the sandboarding!

The final dune was nice and steep

And finally, a sunset pic on this blog!

The Nazca lines

The hands

Spider

Hummingbird

The Astronaut

Surreal landscape

Many of you will find it hard to believe (thankfully I have photographic evidence) but the other day I wilingly climbed into a six seater plane (picture a station wagon with wings) for a flight over the one of South America´s great mysteries, the Nazca lines. What you will find even harder to believe is that I really enjoyed it, despite the incredible bumpiness and over-eager pilot!

The Nazca lines span a large area and are a series of animal figures and geometric shapes etched out of the arid, stony ground. They were created by ´clearing away the brush and hard stones of the plain to reveal the fine dust beneath´. No one is completely sure why they were made but it is thought ´they were probably a kind of agricultural calendar to help regulate the planting and harvesting of crops´. When you have a look at the above pics, try to remember that they were thought to have been done between 500 and 800 AD. Don´t ask me how they knew about spacemen and stuff...

Many thanks to ´The Rough Guide to South America´ for the above information.

Ah, the ocean!

Loads of surf potential and no one for miles...

A typical lunch on the road

I´m not sure how far we´ve travelled but it must be over 10,000km. After that amount of time it´s always a pleasure to see the sea again. But it´s the first time I´ve seen the Pacific Ocean and I can proudly report that I had an epic bodysurfing session two nights ago.

Colca Canyon

This crazy animal hopped across the rocks in front of us. It´s a mixture between a rabbit and a dassie and I forget what they´re called but I´ll get back to you.

Nevado Mismi, apparently

It seems I´ve been bandying about ´The World´s Greatest´, ´World´s Most Dangerous´ etc a hell of a lot lately. I´m about to do it again. Apparently Colca Canyon is the world´s DEEPEST canyon. It is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon and at its deepest is 3300m from top to bottom. It runs 450km from where we were to the Pacific ocean in the west.

It is an unbelievable sight. It was such a shame that we didn´t get to explore it more, but here you have it. And if that wasn´t enough, we were also lucky enough to view three Condors riding the thermals at a place called Cruz del Condor. One of the Condors glided past a few metres away and I swear it was like a small plane. Standing 1 metre 20cm and with a wingspan of 3m they must be one of the biggest birds around. Awesome.

Another little bonus of our trip out to Colca Canyon was getting to see Nevado Mismi in the distance. The Nevado Mismi mountain is the unofficial source of the Amazon river.

The ´White City´of Arequipa

Arequipa´s Plaza de Armas

El Misti volcano rises 5600m above the city of Arequipa, this pic is of El Misti, from behind

From Cusco we made our way south to the ´White City´ of Arequipa, Peru´s second largest city and home to more than a million people. It´s called the ´White City´ as many of the town´s buildings are made of ´sillar´ stone, extracted from the vast amount of surrounding volcanic rock. To be honest we didn´t have that much time to explore here unfortunately, as it was more of a base for us to explore the nearby Colca Canyon, but what I can tell you is that their main square is supposedly one of the most beautiful in Peru. I´ll vouch for that. It´s sort of like walking through the set of ´From Dusk ´til Dawn´ with loads of arches, fountains, palm trees and white stone and hardcore looking Peruvians...