Twenty Fourteen : Hola from Peru!

Flights, buses, and a lot of dodgy wifi has made it pretty difficult to get online for more than a minute or two at a time. Right now, I'm sitting next to a peaceful sleeping Gran all tuckered out from our flight this morning over the Nasca lines- but more on that later! Ok, so it's nearly 10.30am on Wednesday here in Nasca Peru, marking the 4th day on our Gecko Peruvian tour. So far the trip has been awesome, we met our tour leader Giscard on Sunday as well as Jules, the lovely girl who gets to join our little family for the whole tour... We were expecting a bit larger group, but with only one extra person it's as though we are on a private tour with a personal Spanish translated and teacher!! Plus Jules is another Aussie, so naturally she fits in perfectly :)

We caught a bus to the seaside village of Paracas where Gran and Zac went out for a lovely beach front seafood dinner, unfortunately I stayed home with a bit of an upset stomach... But the next morning I'd recovered and it was lucky that I had because the Ballestas Islands were spectacular! We were lucky enough to see dolphins only a few minutes into the trip, and after that the wildlife kept coming. Millions of Peruvian Boobies (named for their lack of brains) and a few of their fluffy white chicks sat in their bird-poo nests that stunk out the entire area. After that we got to see my personal fav, the sea lions! The noisy, grunting animals can weigh up to 300kg, and look pretty awkward on the rocky beaches, but in the water they were so relaxed. There would have been hundreds on the the little beaches we saw. Along the trip we also saw countless other bird species, lots of little penguins, amazing rock formations and caves, even locals in wetsuits catching octopus and crabs on the rocky shoreline.

Just as soon as we arrived back at the hotel it was time to hop on another 4.5 hour bus ride to Nasca. The time flew by fairly fast, with a mixture of sleep, reading and admiring the harsh desert like terrain, mountain ranges, and the occasional valley or 'oasis'. We got to Nasca and jumped straight in a car with guide Antonio (who was quite the character-loud, confident and funny), we drove to Palpa where we climbed a 25m iron tower decades old (I was a little edgy at the top, and the wind didn't help!), at the top we saw drawings from approx. 400BC. Then we drove back toward Nasca to see some of the later but more famous lines, which included the hands, the tree and the lizard. Even though the lizard is hardly visible because the highway runs straight through the middle if it. Anyway I could ramble on for ages because I find the lines so interesting, but I won't or this will turn into a novel not a blog... I will try to put some pictures below, but honestly photos could not do them any justice!

The next morning (today) we were up bright and early (hence why Gran, Zac and Jules are all napping now), and drove straight to a tiny little airport to see the lines from a bit different perspective. Forget the plane to Calgary, this plane was so tiny if Zac were any taller I don't think he would have fit! Despite the size, the plane ride was so smooth and the two young peruvian pilots were great. We saw more famous drawings, and countless shapes and lines many kilometres long. It was so impressive to see from the air!

Back at hotel, I am waiting for these sleepy heads to wake up! Then we have the rest of the day to roam around town until about 10pm tonight, when we board a night bus for 9 hours to Arequipa- our longest bus ride for the entire tour.