Arequipa
We stopped off in this pretty city enroute to Nazca. It was much lower in altitude and so much warmer, very welcome after 6 weeks of cold and wet. Unfortunately I was quite ill with aforementioned stomach bug and we therefore spent most of the 3 days we were there in our hotel room catching up on CSI on the TV. Me being ill obviously gave us the excuse to veg out! Mik kindly vegged out with me! We had a wander round town then caught a bus to Nazca.
That's me keeping it short!
Cara
Nazca
Finally getting to Nazca was a special moment for me. I've wanted to go there since reading about it in my dad's copy of "Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious world" at the age of nine. The Nazca Plain, just outside the small town of Nazca (what are the odds?) is world famous for the hundreds of lines, geometric shapes and animal figures etched into the dark earth across the plain. The markings, made over many centuries by the ancient Nazca tribes of the area, are of immense proportions with some lines stretching over 100 kilometres and giant birds with 130 metre wingspans to name but a few. What inspires such mystery about this place is that these figures can only really be discerned and appreciated from the air. So why did an ancient civilisation, with no ability to fly and thus appreciate their work, expend enormous resources 
over hundreds of years etching these figures into the desert floor? Well the answer, my friends, is that nobody has the faintest bloody idea. Theories are shipped in by the container load, but actual evidence is, unlike the lines themselves, a bit thin on the ground. One of the main reasons for this is that the Nazcans never developed a written language, so no permanent record of their endeavours exists to fill us in on the details. Well done chaps. You never learned to read or write but you have time to make 250 foot monkeys in the sand. Maybe you should have spent a bit more of your leisure time inventing an alphabet and a bit less playing in a sandpit. That way we would know what the hell you were playing at and dozy pillocks like Erik Von Daniken wouldn't have sold millions of books carping on about extraterrestrial landing sites. However, I digress (for a change!). The best way to see the lines, in fact the only way to really see them at all, is to take a short flight out over the desert and see them from the air.
It was a bit of a budget buster, but how could we not do it? Within minutes of climbing off our overnight bus into Nazca and checking into a hotel, we were chatting to one of the local tour companies to arrange a trip. The gentleman was very helpful and took us through the various 
options and gave us the prices. I jumped into my best haggling style, and regaled the chap with tales of how we would really love to take the flight over the lines, truly we would, but alas it was beyond our modest budget and unless he was able to move on his price in some way, we would on this occasion be unable to treat ourselves to his excellent offer. If we were able to afford it, we would undoubtedly book with him, as he was so friendly and helpful, but his inflexible approach precluded our ability to afford it, so there you go. Too bad, but that's the reality of it. The ball was now firmly in his court. How could he possibly not budge on his price? He refused to budge on his price. Not even a little bit? Not even a little bit. I moved over to the sidelines and tagged Cara. She immediately leapt into the ring and jumped into her best haggling style, which was to stare off into the middle distance and say nothing. She adopted an expression which suggested she couldn't remember if she may have left the gas on somewhere. In the face of such an onslaught, he immediately dropped his price. More, in fact, than we actually expected of him. The deal was struck and the paperwork completed.
I have absolutely no idea how Cara does this. Over the years, various employers have spent thousands of pounds training me in the art of negotiation, and nothing I can muster will ever come close to the persuasive guile conveyed in Cara's blank, silent stare just over your right shoulder. Another good example of this was the time we were wandering through Chinatown in
Singapore and Cara spotted a bracelet she fancied. She asked the seller how much and the lady answered 25 Singaporean dollars. Cara just held the bracelet in her hand and affected her meanest blank stare, all the time saying nothing. You could see the jewellery seller just buckle and fold under the barrage of silence. "20 dollars" she said, immediately followed by "okay lady, special price for you 15 dollars." Cara shifted her expression slightly from "Is the gas on?" to "Have I got clean socks for tomorrow?" and the effect was immediate. "Okay, okay, just 10 dollars" came the new offer. In the end Cara didn't buy the bracelet and as we walked away I heard a small, defeated voice say "Maybe you'd give me 8 dollars?" I almost fell down a manhole I was laughing that hard. When we get home Cara should write a book called "How to stare your way to the top". I also have a book coming out soon if anybody is interested. It's called "How to live in the sun for months on end without getting the slightest bit of colour on your pasty, white skin". If anybody should want a copy of my 6 page Magnum Opus, please deposit £15 in my bank account and I'll forward you a copy as soon as it's printed.
Now, where were we? Oh yes, the Nazca Lines. We spent the afternoon in the local museum, which had some excellent displays and information about the ancient civilisation. We read all about the most popular theories regarding the lines but the essential point was no, we don't have a clue what they're for. Thanks for the update! First thing the next morning we were picked up from our hotel and ferried out to the small airport for our flight. Before we set off we were treated to a 50 minute BBC documentary about the lines which concluded that they also didn't have the foggiest idea why someone would scrape a dead straight line across miles of barren desert. Next thing, we were strapped into our little four-seater Cessna and off we went. The pilot was excellent and talked to us through the headsets as we flew over the plain, pointing out the different lines, shapes and animal figures. He would bank sharply as we flew over each figure so I could get photos of them, then turn around and bank over to the other side so Cara could get a good look also. The markings themselves were created by removing the surface rocks from 
the desert floor and piling them up at the side of the wide tracks, revealing the paler sand beneath. The whole area has had no significant rainfall since the last ice-age and the lines are remarkably well preserved. We could see them clearly below us as we flew around. Kick some rocks to one side and many centuries later, yahoos like me can still see them. Pretty amazing stuff. Even Cara was impressed and she'd never even heard of Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World. The flight lasted about 40 minutes but seemed much shorter. It was an excellent experience and the yet another fulfilment of a lifelong dream to add to our already extensive list. Many thanks to my mum & dad for footing the bill for that one with some of the dollars they gave us as a leaving gift. After that we were escorted back to our hotel, where we quickly packed our bags and jumped on the next bus out of town.
That's me not keeping it very short.
Mik
Huacachina
Peru has a desert - who knew? It also has an oasis in the desert called Huacachina. It's really quite mad as you feel like you are near the beach due to the amount of sand around, but are in fact surrounded by the massive sand dunes of the desert. Then there is the lake around which all the hotels and restaurants are clustered. It's not a big place and it had a really chilled atmosphere. Which was just what we needed. We stayed in a place with a pool and spent some time just lazing around there, or in nearby hammocks. It was a sociable place and evenings were spent eating BBQ and trying the local pisco sours. A drink made from pisco, a spirit made from locally grown grapes mixed with lots of lime juice, ice, sugar and an egg white. Sound a bit wierd. Well I took quite a liking to them until I saw the amount of sugar that went in. Guess I hadn't really thought about how the froth was very meringue-like !!!
Tried my fisrt typical peruvian dish of ceviche which consists of raw fish and seafood marinated in lemon juice, served with herbs, a touch of chili and marinade. Delicious and a very welcome change from the stodge we had been used to. Met a lovely couple, Aleks and Anna, from Holland and the US respectively, and had a brill time hanging out with them - this entailed sampling the local wine (drinkable after the first glass), and more saltado, a dish of chicken or beef fried in a spicy sauce together with onions, tomatoes, and loads of chips - guess who's favourite that was?!
Our last day was spent being slightly more active. We set off in a dune buggy and drove around the sand dunes at high speed, it was great fun. The dunes stretched as far as you could see and some must have been over 100m high, so the drop offs were quite scary! We also tried our hand at sandboarding. Now, having attempted snowboarding before I thought I would at least be able to slide a little way down the dunes, but no! It's completely different and I was useless, Mik did far better and had to wait a while for me at the bottom of each run, if you can call a mass of sand that.
We eventualy dragged ourselves away and onto another local bus.....!
Cara
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