Pisco to Nazca

This has to rank all but top in “my busiest days” list. For starters we visited the Islas Ballestas, for a touch of bird & Sea Lion spotting. The Islas Ballestas are known in South America as the poor man’s Galapagos Islands we headed out to sea in an elongated speed boat, pasted the trident shaped Candelabra, etched into the sand stone hillside & arrived at the sprawling, squawking Islands. Humboldt penguins, Cormorants, Boobies & Pelicans all jostled for space on every space section of dry rock; occasionally the abundant Sea Lion families managed to squeeze themselves ashore & basked in the warm winter sun.

The tour lasted a good 2 hours & left us feeling a little parched so our next port of call, for main course was a local Pisco distillery. We left Pisco following this unfortunately named Tuk tuk down the street.

A quick tour of the fairly basic grape press & distillation equipment had us firmly placed inside the sample room trying the various concoctions of Pisco cocktails. Having had just “El classico” breakfast (which consists of 2 rolls, jam & a cup of Tea/coffee) the Pisco shot straight into the blood stream producing wide smiles & rolling eyes!

Hungry for food we jumped back on a local tour bus & headed down to Huacachina, an oasis village lying sheltered amongst some huge sand dunes. The attached picture has a huge spoonful of artistic licence as it was the only angle I could take of the Oasis that didn’t contain tourist advertising signs, shiny plastic pedalow boats & fat filling fast food joints: Huacachina is not the idyllic oasis image that one would like to conjure up, but is a nasty little tourist honey pot; we therefore treated it for what it was & used it as a watering hole. The recommended restaurant we chose had just opening (at 1.30pm) as we arrived. It proceeded to make us wait for nigh on 2 hours as it laboriously served us a simplem.3 course set menu .The wait however allowed the Pisco buzz to wear off before our pitched in for our third activity of the day; a desert of dune buggy riding & an after diner liquor of Sand boarding.

The 16 of us climbed aboard 2, 8 person buggies & literally ROARED out of Huacachina into the dunes. The roller coaster type ride flew over the sand, skidded around bends & leapt over & then down steep slopes. 30 minutes later we found ourselves on top on a high sided slope, strapping our feet into sand boards. I say board as it really was a piece of laminated MDF with fealtcrow foot straps attached. I tried one run stood up & then joined everyone else in sliding down hill Superman stylie as it was significantly easier to stay “on board.”

Hot, sweaty & covered in sand we again boarded the bus & headed further south to Nazca. Dusk arrives at 5.30 - 6ish so we travelled through the dark arriving at our hotel at 7.30 for a quick turn around shower & change then out to diner in a local restaurant. The restaurant had its own armed guard stood outside the gated entrance casually dressed in a matching flack jacket for good measure. The tour de force was again apparently unnecessary, but I’m starting to get the distinct impression that there’s more to Peru’s security than has meet our tourist eyes.

Guto*, my Welsh room mate & I collapsed into bed & assisted by a couple of beers & Pisco sours were asleep within seconds!

*Guto – ((pronounced – Get-o) in group shot, back row 4^th from left)