We slept in on Monday, had a leisurely breakfast and checked out of the La Casa de Melgar. We walked to Plaza de Armas where there was a huge parade going off with police, army, and cadets all represented with lots of uniforms, flags and speeches. The South Americans seem to be really good at this stuff. All the roads leading to the plaza were blocked off by fleets of official cars and motorbikes.
We walked across the Rio Chilli on Calle Bolognesi into a dodgier part of the city to see the Museo La Recoleta located in a convent. The street was lined with leather workshops all the way down to the bridge. They had the usual handbags, belts and wallets but also chaps, saddles, and whips as well. The Rio Chilli was running quite strongly but one local was up to his thighs fishing with a large cane rod. The old stone walls on the river side looked in various stages of collapse. We found the museum on the far side but it was just about to close for siesta from 12.00 pm to 3.00pm so we decided to come back later. We walked back towards the centre over Puente Grau with a grim statue of the general overseeing the traffic. We took a couple of turns and got completely lost and walked for an hour through busy market streets. Eventually we found our way back to the Mercedaria pedestrian strip and Capriccio where we had lunch. Then we wandered back to the Museo La Recoleta and wandered through several cloisters with exhibits on pre Colombian art, colonial religious art, the nun's cells, Amazon animals, Amazon tribes' artefacts, and an old and impressive library upstairs.
We walked back to the hostel and sat down in the bar to update our diary, upload our photos and read. We went out for dinner at around 7.00 pm to a parilla (BBQ). Back at the hostel, we caught a taxi to the Terrapuerto bus station and got on our overnight bus.
We woke up after sleeping reasonably well on Tuesday morning to see huge tawny brown desert dunes with a belt of green running through the middle. These were trees and fields of various crops including large areas of grape vines. We arrived at the dusty town of Nazca, where most of the passengers disembarked. We rolled on through the desert and then climbed up a mountain range. To our disappointment, we couldn't see any sign of the Nazca Lines. We arrived at Ica two hours later and shared a taxi with Amber from Boston to the little oasis town of Huacachina. We checked into our room at Hotel El Huacachinero and admired the pool and the indigenous art in the foyer. To our delight our bath towels had been folded into the shape of two swans. We walked around town to the lagoon where we could see that the sand dunes were encroaching on the edge of town. There was a picturesque walkway encircling three quarters of the lagoon. The oasis was circled by trees including some large palms with a variety of birds flying around. After an iced passionfruit juice, we walked back to the hotel where we spent the afternoon lazing by the pool, reading, swimming and chatting to other travellers. There were quite a few birds in the pool area including a couple of parrots and a macaw which appeared to be the hotel pets.
Our alarm went off at 5.45 am on Wednesday and we had breakfast quickly so that we could be ready in time to leave for our Ballestas Islands tour at 6.30 am.
We spent an hour or so driving out to the port at Paracas where we jumped on a boat to the islands. On the way to the islands we saw some dolphins and passed the El Candelabro – a 50 metre high candelabra-shape traced in the desert hillside overlooking the sea. The islands were spectacular – eroded into many caves and arches. The islands were home to thousands of seabirds and hundreds of sea-lions. We saw the Humboldt penguin, cormorants, boobies and pelicans nesting in the rocks and on the shores we saw large numbers of sea-lions with their young. On our boat of about 20 people the only person who got anointed with guano was Suzie! Thankfully we were forewarned so Suzie did have a scarf over her head. The islands were completely barren and covered in guano. Every five to seven years when the guano reaches a depth of 30 cms, it is removed to be used as fertiliser. The stench was overpowering so we won't be applying for that job! The sheer numbers of birds turned the red sand of some of the islands black. Huge numbers were constantly flying in and out in formations of long lines or V shapes. The gannets, terns and pelicans also dived spectacularly into the water like missiles. The birds were also beautiful flying along the surface of the water, gliding within centimetres of the surface. There were some fishermen allowed to harvest scallops, squid, octopus and mussels. We arrived back at Paracas and saw a large shark on the jetty. We had a good time on the drive back with all the people in the minibus so we decided to go for lunch together to the Bamboo Cafe. After lunch, we had to rush off on our winery tour.
We were ferried off in a battered mini taxi to Tacama winery on the other side of Ica. We passed cotton fields, grapes, pecan trees, avocadoes and mangoes. The winery was previously a monastery but had been a winery since 1889. The view over the grapevines from the bell tower was lovely. We tasted some wines and pisco but couldn't get too excited as the Peruvians preferred sweet wines and the pisco was a strong grape spirit which didn't really appeal to us.
Then we drove to the next place which was called El Catador. In contrast to the last place this was an "artisan" or boutique winery and it was located with a handful of other similar sized wineries with a field of grapes on one side and antiquated equipment on the other. They had some interesting tastings including a lemon flavoured pisco which we mixed with honey before tasting and "Peruvian Baileys", a mixture of pisco, milk, vanilla and honey.
We got dropped off back at Huacachina, and spent some time back at the hotel and organised our bus tickets to Lima. Today our towels were folded into a dog.
We slept in on Thursday morning and then had a leisurely breakfast in the hotel garden with the parrots and the macaw. We went for a walk around the lake which looked beautiful in the morning light, took photos of oasis, dunes, palms, turtle, tiger herons and a red insect eater, bought some water and then headed back to the hotel to read and laze around the pool area. It was a hot day and there was a lot of construction work going on around the hotel.
In the middle of the day we went out briefly for lunch, then we went back to the hotel pool until it was time to leave for our dune buggy trip. We got into the strange contraption with big wheels, big motor and roll cage, with six other people. We roared out of town and into the sand dunes. It was a bit like a ride at the Ekka with climbs up near vertical dune faces and then stomach turning drops down the other side. At first, we were convinced that the buggy would roll. After a while we began to relax and enjoy the harsh desert sand scenery. We stopped five times to sand board down large dune faces and it was actually very easy because we lay down on our stomachs, tucked our elbows in and went straight down. To slow down we could use our feet as brakes, but we were all trying to go the furthest. Poor Suzie split her cargo pants getting back in the buggy towards the end. We stopped at another small oasis hidden in the huge dunes and that was amazing – to see in the midst of all that sand another patch of green and palm trees that had obviously been there a long time. We watched the spectacular sunset with the light and shadows changing the dune colours and all the shades of gold and purple that came and went.
We got back to our hotel, where we found our towels were now an elephant.
On Friday morning, we woke to the screeching of the parrots in the huarango tree behind the pool. After a shower we had breakfast with the parrots and had a last walk around the Huacachina oasis to get a bottle of water. Then we were in a taxi to the Cruz del Sur terminal in Ica where we boarded the bus for Lima. It was hot and sticky when we got on but the bus had air con, music and a movie before lunch of chicken or beef with rice. First we headed back to the coast for our first stop at the port of Paracas, then we rolled along the coast on the flat Pan American highway. At first the scenery was desert sand with spectacular mountains on one side – dark rock half covered with drifting sand. There was intermittent irrigation with fields of tomatoes and corn. Later on we saw surf on the coastal side and the water looked a dirty brown. There were fields of avocado trees and construction of extra lanes for the highway. Small one room hut settlements sprang up, some with livestock in makeshift wooden pens. There were long wire barracks full of brown chickens in poor condition. The cold Humboldt current meeting the warm air caused a surreal fog to roll in over the dunes so that visibility was poor on the highway and the view became snippets through the mist. As we got closer to Lima the slums became more congregated with the tiny box dwellings joined together like beehives. After over five hours we arrived in smoggy Lima and caught a taxi to our hotel in Barranco. We were very careful as we had been warned that petty theft was particularly prevalent prior to Christmas!
Our hotel in Barranco was really modern and we had a lovely large room with silver Japanese stencils on the wall. We had a cup of tea in the lobby and then we went out. We stopped at a very large artisan store a couple of blocks away and then walked along the cliffs and flower gardens overlooking the sea. It was late afternoon and the sun was just beginning to set so the views were magnificent. We walked through the Larco Mar shopping centre on our way to Miraflores. We had a light dinner at Hot & Cool and then we walked back to our hotel in Barranco through the main shopping strip in Miraflores. After all the negative feedback from travellers our first afternoon in Lima was surprisingly pleasant.
After breakfast on Saturday, we headed out for the day. We had decided to spend the day in downtown Lima and we caught the "Metro" into town. The "Metro" turned out to be a very efficient banana bus with a dedicated lane and special stops so that it didn't get caught up in Lima's crazy traffic.
We arrived in Lima after about half an hour and made our way to Plaza San Martin with its lovely gardens, fountains and the usual equestrian statue of General Jose San Martin. From there it was a short walk through a pedestrian mall to the Plaza de Armas right in the middle of Lima's Historic Centre. Around the plaza were the Cathedral of Lima, Government Palace and Archbishop's Place.
After admiring the plaza and its surroundings, we made our way to the Iglesia de San Francisco. The church was a striking yellow and white colonial building. The baroque church had a red and white Moorish style ceiling and an impressive neoclassical altar. There was some sort of military awards ceremony/service going on and so we decided to visit the monastery next door.
The visit to the monastery was by a guided tour which took us past the cloisters to a fine museum of religious art, with scenes from the life of Saint Francis of Assisi and a series of portraits. The cloisters and the rooms were lined with hand painted glazed ceramic tiles from Seville . We climbed up a staircase with a breathtaking domed carved cedar Moorish ceiling to visit a fantastic seventeenth century library containing 20,000 books. While we were upstairs our guide took us to the choir where we saw beautifully carved saints above the choir stalls, a pipe organ in need of restoration and an elaborate rotating bookstand. Back downstairs again we visited the refectory, where there was a painting of The Last Supper – Peruvian style with potatoes, chillis and guinea pigs on the table. In the Chaplain's room was a series of paintings depicting the Passion of Christ that had been attributed to Peter Paul Rubens and in the Sacristy, there was a large painting of the Franciscan family tree.
The final part of our visit was the descent into the catacombs, a series of crypts underneath the church which served as a burial ground for the monks. We filed past pits of bones which had been arranged by size and type by archaeologists. The most macabre sight came last - a round well lined with perfectly laid out skulls and femurs.
We had a late lunch and then we paid a quick visit to the Casa de Benardo Higgins. There were some traditional masks and costumes on display but we were more interested in the beautiful colonial building with its lovely cornices, columns with roman capitals and stained glass doors. We walked over the Puente Trujillo with the dirty river flowing underneath. In the distance colourful slums climbed up the hills and the other side of the river was considerably run down. We spent a few minutes walking around the mall before retreating back to the Plaza Mayor. We walked to the Plaza Bolivar with the Congress building behind heavy security and vultures resting all around in trees and lamp posts.
Then we gradually made our way back to the Metro stop. We walked along a very busy street which seemed to be the bus stop for lots of old clapped out 1950's style local buses. There were lots of people coming and going and street vendors selling fried liver, fried pork, fried chicken gizzards, corn with cheese, popcorn, stuffed potatoes and churros.
We walked past the huge Mercado Comercio 5 Continents which extended off the street on a couple of levels. We turned onto Avenida Grau and found the Estacion Central where we caught the metro bus back to Barranco and had a short rest at the hotel before heading off to central Barranco for dinner.
We walked down Avenida Grau across a bridge and through a night market to the small Puente de Suspiros. At the church next door a wedding was taking place and we spotted the Fiesta de Sabores nearby. This was a collection of stalls manned mainly by women with home-made Peruvian foods. We tried a couple of dishes and the sweet maize beer followed by some dessert before walking back to the hotel.
We slept in on Sunday and after another fresh breakfast in the interior garden of the hotel we prepared for leaving for the USA. We walked down to central Barranco stopping at a salon on the way for a haircut for Keith and a pedicure for Suzie. We walked around the same route that we had taken last night. In the daytime we could see the views out to sea and appreciate the old colonial buildings. We walked back towards our hotel stopping at the Canta Rana (Singing Frog) restaurant recommended in the Lonely Planet where we had some lovely fish ceviche (raw fish with lime, chilli and onion). We bought a pair of leather sandals – leather is generally good quality and cheap in Peru. We walked back to our hotel to drop them off and ate our granadillas and mangoes. The fruit and fruit juices have been outstanding in South America and we will miss that. Then we walked to Miraflores and started shopping for boots and jeans for the New York weather. The leather boots looked good and soon we had found what we needed. We caught a taxi back to Barranco and went to an Italian restaurant near our hotel. We had a quick dinner and then we raced back to the hotel for a shower and some last minute packing before the taxi picked us up at 8.45 pm. We drove through some dangerous looking parts of Lima on the way to the airport and the processing took ages so we were just in time to board our flight. On board, we quietly celebrated making it around South America without any problems.
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