Came to Ica this morning to sample LOTS of Pisco and at its various stages! Had a fab tour round the first vineyard and distillary, where thankfullly, one of our new found Canadian friends, also on the tour, acted as interpreter for our Spanish speaking guide! Amy and Jess were two gals who actually attended the tour yesterday to the Islands! Can´t swing a cat over here without bumping in to someone you know/recognise!

Anyway after sampling about 6 different distillations we were a little tipsy (it was only 11am) but we moved on to the second vineyard/bizarre museum type thing with gusto. Here we sampled a whole load more of the local brew and met a complete berk of a man who was our guide - he was hammered and was pretty offensive to Amy, who thankfully stood up for herself and gave him a dressing down in Spanish! The shed type thing which we were sampling this brew in was also a kind of museum - it was bloody weird! There were loads of really ancient - we are talking over 2000yrs old (alledgedly) relics dotted around the by vessels of Pisco and wall hangings, stuffed animals - it was abit freaky, and we doubt the quantity of Pisco drunk helped!

Anyway, we escaped this little shop of horrors and made our way to the CHOCOLATE FACTORY!!! YUMYUM! Unfortunately, cos it was a public holiday, the actual factory was closed, but we still got to go in the shop and munch our way through numerous DELICIOUS free samples! This chocolate was much better than any other Peruvian choc we´ve eaten - it actually had flavour rather than just being a claggy mass of stodge! (what a great phrase!)

Anyway, then we went on to Huacachina.......