Week 42 - Ecuador

I can fly!!

Love the sea lions

Simply gorgeous!

Hey you iguana!

Volcano Sierra Negra

Wow, what a wife!

Hey ladies

Buenos Noches Amigos!

Wow, this has certainly been one of the best weeks of the past 9 months! I´m ecstatic and can´t believe how fun we had in the Galapagos! So how cool are these islands, well, I can honestly say that of all the islands these are my favourite islands I´ve ever been to. Not meaning to brag, but just to explain how good this place is, I´d honestly rate the Galapagos more fun, interesting and exciting than the Maldives, Seychelles, Hawaii, or the Virgin Islands! This place is downright amazing!

Some of you may not know what is so special about the Galapagos. Just to explain the basic history - this is where Darwin discovered his theory of Natural Selection, thus giving more evidence to evolution. The islands have only been inhabited for about 150 years. As a result, the animal population is phenomenal, did you know they actually have dinosaurs here!!! Well, not really, but it’s still pretty cool!

Possibly since people were not around for all this time, or more to the fact that the animals don´t have too many predators, they are just not afraid of people. It’s one of the few places where you can walk up to all the wild animals and they don´t run away!! Also, unlike Asia, the wild animals do not expect food from you.

Lonesome George: Poor Lonesome George is the last remaining Pinta Tortoise in the world. He was discovered about 40 years ago. All his family was wiped out, many by whalers in the 1800´s. We are told that the whalers mainly took females as they were lighter thus easier to carry so the population dwindled so much that they died out, all but George. They had tried to get him to mate to make a cross species, but this was unsuccessful. We actually saw George mating at the Charles Darwin Centre which was a pretty funny site (yes I´m very immature).

Our route: Seymour Island > South Plaza Island > Santa Fe Island > Espanola Island > Floriana Island > Santa Cruz Island > Isabella Island

Sunday to Wednesday - Cruising the Galapagos: A cruise in the Galapagos is a must for any visit! It’s the perfect way to see the many tough to reach islands and close enough to touch the wildlife - yes pretty much all of them - birds, iguanas, sea lions, and even sharks, but you never know if they bite; the sea lions and GUIDES have big teeth - the latter being more concerned. Our ship had 16 passengers, 7 crew and it was plush! With overly comfortable AC cabins and more delicious food than Henry the 8th was accustomed to!
We visited the islands of Seymour, South Plaza, Santa Fe, Espanola, and Floreana. All the above are not inhabited except Floriana. I´ll be brief and tell you just a few of the thousand cool things about this trip. Starting with the birds, we were sailing the first day and had 10 Frigate birds flying closely over our boat, sometimes just one meter (3 feet) over our heads! Unfortunate for one Australian girl on our boat, a frigate bird had good "aim" and she received a "present"! The frigate birds are over 2 meters in wingspan and watching these birds fight and play over our heads was a great introduction to our boat ride. The albatrosses on Espanola were clumsy and amusing. It takes them up to an hour to land. They seem to hit the ground as smoothly as a drunken Easyjet Airlines pilot!
One species which is impossible to miss in the Galapagos is the Iguana. There are two main types; land iguanas and marine iguanas, with Floriana island being the only place where the two mate. On Espanola Island there are thousands of these guys and it’s almost hard not to step on them. We also walked by their extensive nesting areas.
The snorkeling was out of this world! We snorkeled every day and saw a bevy of sea creatures. The penguins swimming by was a special site! We also saw sharks (white tips and Galapagos sharks), rays, turtles, and may tropical fish including many puffers. The MOST exciting characters we came across were the sea lions. I mentioned on the last post how friendly they are. The young pups would even come up and almost kiss our masks!
On Floriana island we went to an unswimmable beach due to the stingray population. We walked into the shallow water and quickly the rays were swimming over our feet!
Also on floriana we saw the old post box used by whalers who would leave mail there for the next person to take it if they were headed in that direction.
One funny species of birds is the boobies, notably the blue footed boobies! These guys perform a crazy ritual for mating where they dance and if the lady likes them they reciprocate... hmmm interesting...
I hate to keep going on about the sea lions, but on Santa Fe and Espanola, we sat amongst sea lion colonies (100+ at each place) on the beach. This is overlooking perfect aqua blue water on soft white sand beaches. We would just sit by them and watch the little ones who after playing around would come looking for their mothers. Essentially if the mother didn´t respond to its yelp, it would go around to all the ladies and try to feed. If it wasn´t the mother it would grown and try to bite the young pup. At one point one of the babies came after us! It was pretty funny, but I didn´t want to stick around to see what happened. Look at the picture to see how close we were, we just laid a few feet away from them all!
The other notable thing about our cruise was the sunsets! WowEwow! Such great colors making the whole place look like a fictitious painting!

Thursday - Isabella Island: With our tour now finished, we joined a dive boat to take in a few more underwater adventures. Sadly we wouldn´t be seeing any hammerheads today or any other sharks for that matter. This may be the Galapagos, but it’s still South America and corruption is high. All the dive boats were barred from leaving the harbor by the coast guard. The dive shops all claim to have paid the money for their permits, but apparently someone in the government stole the money. So they turned us back, shame. Later than day we headed to Isabella island which just opened up to "free" tourism 3 years ago! On the way, they stopped our speed boat in the middle of the ocean and moved us to another boat. Think about this, the boats rocking and if they drop a bag, its gone! Hilarious! Isabella, what a place! Get here fast before it changes, true island paradise! It´s still very raw and has the small town island feel!

Friday - Volcan Sierra Negra: It has the second largest crater in the world for a volcano! What a site! The last eruption was in 2005 and it was over 125 years since the previous eruption so it killed all the vegetation in the crater which was very lush. Our 16km (10 mile) hike there was fantastic! So nice to get some real exercise! Later in the day we went to the Tortoise reserve and saw an overturned baby tortoise. We watched him frantically try to resolve the situation to no avail. Surprisingly a buddy came over and actually and obviously worked to get him back on his feet. I am shocked that turtles are this smart, but they are! We then hiked down to a salt lake and found 5 bright pink flamingos! The nice thing about the Galapagos, that night we walked the beach back to our hotel. It’s the first time we have done this in South America and I can say we felt perfectly safe. Whilst it’s South America, it’s not....

Saturday - R-E-L-A-X-I-N-G: We had woken up early for over a week and today we just chilled. After enjoying the almost deserted beach in Isabella we caught the boat back to Puerta Ayora where we are now sitting in an internet cafe. Tomorrow I hate to say it, but we have to go back to Quito.

So what’s next - We are now heading to Columbia and Pasto, then Popayan and San Augustin.

Until next time,

Ciao,

Dan and Marina

Week 41 - Ecuador

Enjoying Quito´s gorgeous churches

Center of the world baby!!! Well, 200 meters off...

Is that a cat in a hat?? No, its a tortoise in a shell!

Here birdy birdy...

The depths of the Pacific Ocean

Say Cheese!

Hola Chicos and Chicas!

As I said before Ecuador is an amazing place. Wow! It just seems to get better and better!

Just to tell you more about this tiny South American country - the diversity of Ecuador is expansive; in landscape and its people. From the mountainous Sierras, to Amazon jungles, to its long coastal beaches and island paradise on the Galapagos, there is certainly a lot to see. The people are just as diverse, including varying tribal ethnicities in the Amazon area, continuing to the mountain cultures in the middle of the country, chilled coastal and Galapagos islanders, and the hard working and hard partying people in Quito and Guayaquil. If you were to pick one country in South America to visit, Ecuador would certainly be a good choice!!

The Equator: We talked about this topic last time, but let me expand on it. Thankfully for Ecuador´s sake, they weren´t the ones who incorrectly decided where the equator went through their country as a huge monument was built. Tack this one up for the French. They sure got it right when Pierre Laclede established St. Louis as the first major city west of the Mississippi; however they sure got it wrong when they placed the equator mark approximately 200 meters/yards south of the real spot!!!

Guidebooks: As most of the world now uses Lonely Planet’s (and yes, I have been fully supporting them as the best around for the last 10 years of my travels), but on this trip, we have been trying a few out to see how they compare. In Ecuador, we picked up a copy of Frommers. Wow, let me tell you this is a pile of carp-oh, did I misspell that word :D It’s by far the worst I´ve ever seen! To be more specific it’s boring, inaccurate, especially misleading on the health section such as malaria advice and the maps seem to have been made by Billy Bob from Boonville, Missouri who hasn´t even ventured down Highway 70! My advice, stay clear of this one!

Monday: Our 5 year anniversary: Well, on most peoples 5 year anniversary (BTW, its the day we met in Russia, no we haven´t been married THAT long) they seem to relax and take it easy. Well, you have been reading these for over 9 months now, do you think we relaxed? I´ll tell you about the day. We did sleep in slightly, having arrived late from a long bus ride. We started with the Basilica del Vota and climbed the stairs to the top for amazing views of Quito. The city is certainly one of the nicest we have seen in South America. In the gorgeous colonial old town, we viewed the La Companie de Jesus church which is lined floor to ceiling with 7 tons of gold! Its surely a spectacle for anyone with.... EYES!! Wow! That night we had a FREE rum night at our hostel - yes this was a good hostel and absolutely one of the main reasons if you want to have fun partying, you stay in hostels! We did leave the free booze for a nice celebratory dinner - just down the street was a delicious Argentinean steak house we indulged at. That night we went out with people from the hostel stopping first at a casino, and we won 55 bucks on Blackjack. Let me tell you when your backpacking, $55 is like $300!! So we went to enjoy our winnings at the nearby nightclub!

Tuesday - La Mitad de Munda: This long series of words is the name for where the equator´s monument in Ecuador is. As mentioned at the top, it’s even in the wrong place. However, not too long ago, someone probably really angered the Ecuadorian government by showing them the undisputable proof via GPS that it is roughly 200 meters north. In the actual spot is a cool trick showing how the water drains to the north (clockwise) and to the south (counter-clockwise) and on the equator - straight down! One thing about Quito, sure does it rain. I don´t mean like London´s famous drizzle, but it pours! Not just once a week or occasionally, but every day. We could even predict it coming in the afternoon. Yes, Quito is a very nice place, but a very wet one too.

Wednesday - Taco Bell: Those reading in America must think it’s very strange I put Taco Bell as the highlight for the day, well I really miss Taco Bell! Even now! The only place I´ve ever seen it out of America is Mexico. Let me say, I love Taco Bell! Having lived outside of the US for about 8 years now, it’s the only fast food I crave. Finally, finally, I´ve found it outside America and the place is Quito! We popped in a posh mall and they had an excellent food court which included Taco Bell to satisfy my long lost craving! Culturally, that day we also visited the National Museum, a Vivarium (snake zoo) and had another Rum night at our hostel - messy!

Thursday - Charles Darwin Centre: We arrived to the Galapagos around midday and this place is absolutely tropical paradise!! Once we arranged our diving trips and our 4 night cruise around the islands, we were set to explore! Firstly, stopping at the Charles Darwin Centre which is a sanctuary for the Galapagos tortoises. Despite these monstrous creatures, we also saw dozens of huge pelicans all around the street of our apartment. These islands are very different to ALL places and I can't wait to tell you more as we explore these over the next week.

Friday - Sharks, sharks and more sharks: We dove two dives today around Gordon´s Rocks (a top 100 dive site in the world). If you are afraid of sharks, don´t come here! We dove with hammerheads, white & black tip sharks, dozens of huge sea turtles (yes, I swear, it was really dozens), probably a dozen eagle and golden rays and a playful sea lion who was very curious of our bubbles. These creatures all love this place as the current is about 15 knots (mph) which makes it a tough dive. That night we dined in a very local area enjoying fish possibly from the same family we saw diving.. They have a street (called Charles Binford) of outdoor barbeques which are far tastier and more authentic, plus much cheaper than the western restaurants here.

Saturday - Sea lions galore: As we started our dive, we could see the Sea lions from the surface, as we descended; they were very interested in us. Doing barrel rolls in front of us, breaking our air bubbles, and poking their face in ours. They are the most playful beasts which are almost as big as a person! In the first 5 minutes of our first dive, waking up the 5 sleeping white-tip sharks almost seemed boring compared to playing with the sea lions! We also saw an angry moray eel and a very scared octopus that Marina and I tried to pull out from under the rocks. In between our dives we found several Galapagos penguins and snorkeled right up to them, which they didn´t seem to mind at all! Tonight its back to our alfresco dining on Calle Charles Binford.

So what’s next for us - I mentioned the cruise. We leave tomorrow morning to celebrate Easter on the Aida Maria to cruise for 4 nights around the islands of the Galapagos. Then we are cruising over to Isabella Island to explore on our own for 2 days.

Until next time,

Hasta luego,

Dan and Marina

Week 40 - Ecuador

Yummy Coy!

Bridge Jumping

The Falls of Banos

Canyoning

Lazy canoe trips down the piranha infested river!

The Shaman doing his work

Que Pasa Amigos!

Wow, what an adventurous past week it has been! I didn´t hear much about Ecuador before this trip (other than about the Galapagos), but it sure is a fun and exciting country!

Let’s start by talking a bit about Ecuador:

Dollarization: Ecuador is the only major country, besides Cambodia I can remember travelling to which uses the US Dollar. They even us US coins here - however some are Ecuadorian made with their own pictures, smartly they even have a 50 cent coin!

Ecuador versus the equator: Ecuador is right smack in the middle of the equator, but its far from the infomercials about baking hot Africa. Much of the country is mountainous so despite being on the equator, it’s a fairly mild climate. Quito the capital is almost at 3000 meters (10,000 feet).

So what have we been up to: Cuenca > Banos > Amazonia (aka the Orient or the Amazon)

Saturday - Crossing the border: After crossing the Peru/Ecuador boarder, we had a night out in lovely Cuenca. This well preserved historical city shows its character with gorgeous buildings, lively squares and a rambunctious nightlife.

Sunday - Pigs: I´ll start the topic with what I believe to be the more interesting pig - Coy (Espanol) or Guinea Pig to us English speakers. This is a delicacy in Peru and Ecuador. We went to check out the central market, which is always a great source of delicious local food and constantly buzzing with activity. On the second floor where the food stalls are located, we found this bizarre delicacy. You can even see guinea pig cages around, which are similar to the ones of childhood friends of mine. It’s not as bad as you would think, more kind of like chicken, with a funny taste and obviously ugly with the sharp teeth poking out. Later we saw half a dozen full roasted (normal) pigs. Of course we couldn´t pass up this culinary pleasure. Let me say, it was divine!

Monday - Bridge Jumping: Today we arrived in Banos, the adventure capital of Ecuador and yes as mentioned before, Banos is also the term for bathrooms in Spanish. Well this city is by far the nicest bathroom I have ever seen. Nestled among large green mountains and volcanoes, the outdoor activities are not in short supply. We started the day with a waterfall tour which stopped at various wild locations. The first was a zipline going across the canyon (roughly 800 meters/yards). Given they missed me and I rolled back over the canyon, Marina was very brave to follow. Next, we approached the bridge jumping spot. They offered a bungee/swing 45 meters/yards off the ground - below would be death on the rocks of a small creek. This would be Marina´s craziest adventure sport choice since that bad decision to sky dive in Russia. This time the landing was easy once the swinging stopped - slowly being guided to solid ground; what a rush!! The last main adrenaline booster was the open cable car over the canyon - only a few hundred meters/yards down!! Finishing on the top of a huge double waterfall! That night we took a soak in the banos - the hot spring baths the city is named after - which was just under another huge waterfall!

Tuesday - Canyoning: What, you thought yesterday’s adventure was enough for one week - think again! Canyoning involves abseiling or rappelling down mountains - in this instance, waterfalls! Being Marina´s first time abseiling - this was the most terrified I had seen her since I explained how much drinking would be involved in our annual St. Louis Soulard Pub Crawl! After a few 10-25 meter/yard waterfalls, she was getting the hang of it and relaxing. By the time we descended the 45 meter monster, she was like Fanzie! Back in Banos we hired a dune buggy and drove to the outskirts taking in the local zoo - hilarious - several teenagers ran this place - no adults! Monkeys had escaped from their enclosure and were running around. If you think that’s bad, later we saw two HUGE tapirs running around and terrorizing families who thought this was a safe place!

Wednesday to Sunday - The Amazon: After hearing about Amazon trips in Ecuador, we decided to call an audible and change our plans. The Amazon rain forest is not just in Brazil, but also in Peru, Ecuador, Columbia, Venezuela, etc. We booked a 4 night trip and after an 8 hour bus ride, 3 hour truck ride, and a 3 hour canoe trip down the Cuyabeno River (a tributary of the Amazon) we reached our camp. The river is full of everything you´d expect - gators, piranhas, anacondas, giant catfish (up to 300kg) and many more. On the way there we saw numerous types of monkeys in the trees. Our camp was modest, but we had a private room with bathroom, so not too bad, however the 5 foot spider web on the ceiling made me think Martha Stewart hadn´t been here recently. I hate to imagine what made that monster! In the common area where we relaxed and had dinner lived a tarantula (yes a wild one) which first showed itself on the second night. We also saw a much smaller one in our camp a few days later, but this was only the size of a baseball. We had night safaris, which seemed more like looking for nasty bugs and spiders. On these trips we saw many dangerous types of spiders such as huge Wolf Spiders which are very poisoness. We also found scorpion spiders, centipedes, grasshoppers the size of your hand, bizarre beady eyed frogs and lots of other strange things. In our room we also found one of these crazy Amazon looking frogs. Marina´s eyes were so big when she saw it, I thought for sure it was a tarantula! We learned how to make bread from Cassava root, which is commonly eaten in the Amazon region. During the day we took boat trips, fished (unsuccessfully) for piranhas and spotted monkeys, anacondas and river dolphins. One day it rained so hard, the river rose about a meter! Yes, 3 feet! This is a rain forest! So as a result, fishing wasn´t so good, but at least it cooled off the scorching temperatures. In the Amazon you don´t have the luxury of the high mountains. People always ask about the bugs in the Amazon, yes they are everywhere, and you can´t be too chicken as you may find a huge spider on your back on day. When we took the boat out at night, I´d shine my flashlight and the amount of bugs would be so thick it was like a blizzard! We also visited a shaman who was fully dressed as you would expect and performed a ritual to clear us of any evil spirits. Such good timing as I was just complaining to Marina about these annoying spirits that wouldn´t leave me alone... :D

Now we are in Quito and here for a few days until we go to the Galapagos for 9 days! Also, very notably is the 5th anniversary of the day Marina and i met.

PS, my prediction for Peru was spot on! Ollanta took the Presidential victory!

Hasta Luego!

Dan and Marina

Week 39 - Peru

Cruising the mountains at Huascaran

Digging out Adobe structures is harder than it looks..

The princess of Chan Chan

Smell the coastal air

Mancora beach's sunset

Como Estas Amigos! And Welcome to Election day in Peru!!!

I mentioned last time that presidential elections were underway and we were on our way out of Peru to see sanctuary in Ecuador from any crazy riots which many follow some vote rigging controversy. What I have learned since is a few funny things about the candidates. So Peru doesn´t seem to have a clue about who to vote for. Firstly there are 5 main candidates, each with a double digit percentage of the votes expected according to the polls. On top of that, when we asked Peruvians who they would vote for, the conversation would go like this, I was going to vote for Piñera, but I am now not sure between Keiko and Kuczynski.
Let me explain about the two latter candidates. Keiko Fujimori is the daughter of an ex-Peruvian president who is was an outright dictator and is being pursued for human rights charges. Oh, you may think Fujimori doesn`t sound too Peruvian, well they are Japanese (mixed). Pedro Pablo Kuczynski is actually half American (the USA type) and he spends most of his time there. So who is going to win, I put my money on Ollanta Humala, who is from the military. My rationale is he has the most public advertisements throughout Peru..
Whatever the case, we have gotten out of dodge. Let me tell you a great supporting reason for leaving which we didn´t know about - THEY HAVE BANNED ALCOHOL!!! Yes, 48 hours before and after the election alcohol is banned.. Good riddens Peru!! We are now relaxing in gorgeous Ecuador!

Let me give you one nugget about Peru before we move on to our trip, Peru must be one of the top 10 most internet connected countries for hotels and restaurants! Everywhere, I have been able to get a FREE wifi connection - wish I could say that about London.

So let me tell you about our path so far: Huarez > Trujillo > Mancora

Monday - Huascaran National Park: For our last week in Peru we headed to Huascaran for a few days of trekking. Once there, we learned that there would only be a one day trail suitable for us, unless we wanted to get all the camping gear, which we were not too up for after being pampered along the Inca trail. Carry my own cooking equipment... I think not :D So we had a nice day hiking through the countryside and up to a waterfall seeing many snow covered peaks around us. We definitely could feel Mama Altitude playing up. We had gone from Lima (200 meters) to our trail taking us up to 4,500 meters (that’s 14,000 feet to my compatriots). Certainly more than one should do and luckily the rain clouds were coming so we didn´t have to test our pride and retreat back.

Tuesday - Chan Chan: We didn´t plan to go to Trujillo, but it was a connection on the way to Mancora and we would need to spend the day in Trujillo. Reading up on it, I was surprised I hadn´t planned a trip there. Trujillo is home to the largest Adobe civilization on the planet. The Moche, yet another indigenous tribe in Peru settled around Trujillo in around 600AD and build these cities of Adobe. The most famous being Chan Chan, La Huaca Arco Iris, and Huaca del Sol. To say they are big, would be a serious insult, they are impressively massive. And let me remind you they are still around today, still impressive and humongous! Yet another amazing site in a country full of far too many to see or even name! I didn't mention the most exciting part, these sites in Trujillo were only discovered a few decades ago and they are still digging them out - see the picture above.

Wednesday to Friday - Mancora: Finally after full nights sleeping on the bus, we have arrived in Mancora. You may think sleeping on the bus for nearly half a week is tough, not after 9 months travelling, but we were thankful to have our nice comfy bed in Mancora! 4 days would have been very annoying... Mancora is a beach town with excellent waves and is a big surfer hangout. For the three days we did absolutely nothing. The last few weeks had been on the go and we really needed some R&R with a bit of sun. The sunset here was very impressive - see above. We had a great hostel with a pool and bar which seemed to tend to our needs when we weren´t in the ocean.

Saturday - Crossing the Boarder: As if we didn´t have enough buses, it took us three to get to our destination in Ecuador. Besides being 3 or 4KM away from each other, crossing the boarder from Peru to Ecuador is a breeze! I´ll tell you more about this small country which is packed full with adventure!
So what is next in store, well Ecuador if you haven´t been reading :D For places, we are now in Cuenca, heading to Banos (yes that means toilet in Spanish), and then up to the Quilotoa Loop. In Banos we may be travelling into the Amazon if all goes well.

Hasta Luego,

Dan and Marina

Week 38 - Peru

Skyward bound!

Bird image in Nazca

Plaza De Armes - Lima

Flying high over Lima (Marina Letayet v Lime)

Buenos Noches!

This post is a short one as Machu Picchu ran over the weekly time, however these two destinations have been full of excitement. There is also a surprise about Marina that I need to tell you, but lets first crack on with Peru!

One thing, while very strange has been a repeating theme in South America. When you visit the churches they seem to look slightly different than they do back home (UK and US). I´m not referring to the architecture, but the way they portray the religious figures. Firstly, I´m not "yet" a historian, although you don´t need to be a history buff to know that Jesus, Mary and Joseph didn´t wear sombreros! In fact, you will see many of the saints from the Middle East who are wearing Spanish clothes. Surely Spain´s empire was vast, but not quite that big. Also, the depictions in church are quite violent. Certainly not a "turn the other cheek" mentality. You can easily find saints, local and global, who are standing on people`s severed heads with lots of blood around. Yes, this is in church!

Election time! If you read about Peruvian history, you will see it hasn´t been the most restful people. In fact, they had a major revolution 30 years ago that left 10´s of thousands of people dead on the military`s and guerillas. The revolution I´m sure had to do with what most of these things do, power control with a small touch of idealism. These Marxists were called the "Shining Path". The government won which brings me to the real topic, ELECTIONS. Yes, the Peruvian Presidential and Congressional elections are on April 10th. Let me explain how Marina and I are going to celebrate.... By getting the hell out of Peru! Having seen the pictures of the last revolution, its probably not even safe to be in Ecuador during this time, but hey it will have to do... To ease my parents concern I will admit I´m joking a bit, but we are absolutely not staying on April 10th, more due to the fact that we don´t want any hassle from transport and businesses being closed.

Our route since the last post - Nazca > Lima

Wednesday - Cusco: Having an extra day to explore Cusco was very helpful indeed. Not only were were able to see many different great places Cusco had hidden away, but also that we were able to take it easy after the 4 day hike. Marina was especially happy to sleep in a bed, but I was more interested in the one hour massage which helped nurse my muscles back to normalness.

Thursday - Small town Peru: We caught the bus on Wednesday night to Nazca, hoping to see the lines in the morning. However due to an immense landslide, we were signifantly delayed and didn´t get to Nazca until the afternoon. Now before you worry we were not hit by the landslide, but we must have reached it only maybe 10-20 minutes afterwards due to the build up of traffic. Huge boulders the size of small cars were on the side of the road, along with enough small and medium sized ones which prevented the cars from passing. Finally they cleared the road and we progressed towards Nazca. There isn´t a lot to do in Nazca so besides practicing my Russian, we were entertained by the beers we had along with a whole chicken we ordered for dinner. Yes, I was hungry... And it was good!!!!

Friday - The Nazca Lines: Today was it, we were actually going to see the mystic Nazca lines just outside the small town of Nazca! We were able to book the small 5 passenger plane we wanted and within 30 minutes we were airborne. This small of a plane was a new experience for both of us and with the dipping, diving and 90 degree turns, I am happy my stomach contents stayed put... The scenery was incredible. Just to give a background on the Lines. Historians believe they were drawn by the ancient Nazca people between 900BC and 600AD. There are over 300 pictures and some almost 200 meters (yards) long! Yes, thats two football fields! Archaeologists are still unsure of their meanings. My theory is this, the drawings were done by a number of people from possibly different tribes and absolutely different eras. One theory I buy into is that the pictures are representation of the constellations. I absolutely believe this and think it also has images which represent their daily life, hunting, fishing, etc. I believe my "combination theory" can be supported to the fact that so many experts have different beliefs.
Once finished we caught a bus to Lima to sample the abundant night life that Lima has to offer.

Saturday - Miraflores: Lima reminds me a bit of St. Louis 10 years ago. Maybe not the green parrots flocking to trees in the park. If you were a tourist, you might have stayed in West County or somewhere to enjoy safety and a good night life. In Lima, many tourists stay in the fun and afluent suburb of Miraflores. Today we ventured in to the downtown which is absolutely gorgeous, however at night I´m told it is quite deserted and can be a bit dodgy. During the day, the area is beautifully filled with history featuring many museums and cathedrals to visit. As we retreated to Miraflores, the sun was going down so time to escape! ;D Thats when Marina started a very big change in her life, see the picture below...

First time with dark hair in 13 years (well kind of dark hair :D)


Sunday - Paragliding over Lima: Having accomplished our goals in Lima, we had time for one thing... Let me tell you, this was Marina´s choice, not mine. Although, you know it wouldn´t have taken her long to persuade me... In the afternoon (approximately 3 hours ago, we went paragliding over Lima. To set the scene, Lima has an excellent Tsunami defense protected by a 100 meter cliff. We jumped off this and enjoyed the coastal scenery from 100-150 meters up! Tonight we head for Huarez and the Huascarán National Park.

Whats on our agenda for the next few weeks; Huascarán National Park & Mancora for sun and surf! Plus possibly a few guinea pigs.. ;D

Until next time, Hasta Luego!

Dan & Marina