Doing Lines in South America...

So our first few days in Peru were a little less than welcoming. We made it over the border without any hassles... but arrived into Piura a little too late to catch the overnight bus to Lima so had to spend the night there. The next day we wandered around a town that has only 4 streets while we waited for our bus. The local museum seemed like a good way to kill time so we managed to get ourselves a one hour guided tour entirely in Spanish... I still don't think our guide had any idea we couldn't understand a thing she was saying! Anyway, we got onto our first night bus (equipped with fully reclining seats) and 18 hours later we were in Lima. Now the original plan was to skip Lima, change buses and continuing heading south... that plan got ditched the minute we realized that our bags hadn't caught the same bus to Lima and were actually still in Piura. I can't speak Spanish, but I'm pretty sure the dirty look I gave to bus operators could be easily translated! So since we had to spend the night, we decided to do it right and headed straight for the beach at Miraflores, one of the swankier neighbourhoods in town. A quick stop at the equivalent of the dollar/pound store for tshirts and pants, and a few pisco sours later, everything seemed to be back on track.

The following day we headed down south to Huacachina, a small oasis in the middle of the desert. The day after arriving we decided to go out for some dune-buggying and to test our skills at sandboarding. Needless to say we both made it down the dunes at rocket speed, throwing in a few twists and turns, and absolutely without any spills. (I think I'm still picking the sand out of my ears!)

After Huacachina, we headed off to Nasca to see the Nasca lines, ancient drawings in the sand. There best seen by air, so we took a 30 minute flight in a very small and bumpy plane. The lines were extremely impressive, however, the true highlight might have been the pilot blaring "Dangerzone" over the speakers as we were taking off!

Next stop was Arequipa to see the Colca Canyon, the second deepest canyon in the world...