We have now recovered from the trials of food poisoning at altitude and are both quite delighted about that. However, we have become overly paranoid about the meat in Peru, and because of this have both been following a pretty much vegetarian diet for the last week or so. Whilst I am finding this nothing more than a bit dull (sorry to all veggies), poor Col is just about eating his arm. He has been salivating at the thought of a big Argentinian steak for days now, and he has at least 10 days to wait before he has the chance of devouring one and Colīs favourite "globe" cafes in Edinburgh and their top bacon butties are all but a distant dream (Stuart P, have an extra one for him!) oh dear. However, all is good and anything is much better than being ill.
Since wrote last, we travelled from Cusco to Arequipa where I explored a stunning monastry dating back to 15th century. The monastry is like a whole walled city within Arequipa and retains most of the original furnishings etc. Might not sound like your cup of tea but genuinely was very interesting and well worth a visit if ever in Arequipa.
We then moved on to Nasca to see the famous Nasca lines, bizarre shapes and representations etched in to the desert millions of years ago and no one knows why. Very strange. Then to Ica where we are now - sandboarding is the local sport here, on the massive desert sand dunes that surround the town. Col and I decided to save cash (first mistake - we should know by now you get what you pay for) and do some DIY sandboarding, instead of the tourist option which involved getting a sand buggy to do all the hard work in climbing the dunes. This resulted in us both being absolutely knackered in the desert heat with legs like jelly after climbing up the humungous mounds of sand (serious mountains of the stuff, not like your dunes on gullane beach). I never really thought about how hard climbing uphill in sand would be....Anyway, it was worth it when we went fleeing down however I was being a big jessie and kept deliberately falling over as soon as I got any speed up....bad idea as I feel a bit bruised and battered today. We are in fact both glad to be alive today after some reprobate came crashing through our hostel yesterday swearing and screaming in spanish and smashing everything in sight and throwing glasses against walls etc....no idea why but he seemed mildly angry. I would avoid the Hotel de Arcas if ever coming to Ica.
We head to Lima tonight, really just to catch our flight to Chile (as we have heard from meany sources that Lima is not the nicest). We have been deliberating the best way to get south to Patagonia but Chile is just so Blo%dy long that none of the options seem massively appealing. Flying = expensive for an internal flight (but then it does take about 4 hours I suppose), bus takes about 3 days and unfortunately our private jet is in for servicing so that option is down the pan. probably going to pitch up at the airport and see if we can get a last minute deal and if not, then i suspect the bus it will be.....
Say hi to bonnie Scotland from us and cheers for the messages - as always, its nice to hear chat from home.
Gill and Col x