Nasca is famous for the Nasca Lines - large lines, shapes and drawings carved into the desert between 900BC and 600AD that only make sense when seen from high up in the air. There are many theories but no consensus on how and why they came to be there. Apparently Nasca has only three minutes of rain a year and they must have had all of it just as I arrived because the road leading into the town was completely flooded. I got off the bus for five minutes to climb ...

On the way from Pisco to Nasca we stopped for a few hours at Huacachina where there is an oasis in the desert and also an artifical oasis which is a tourist resort. We went out into the sand dunes in dune buggies - basically wire cages on wheels. Once up there we did some sand boarding. I was actually not bad at it this time - I wasn't great at my first attempt in Namibia, this time wasn't as professional a set-up but it was so nice to have the buggy to drive us...

On the road from Lima to Pisco we passed the colourful but deprived shantytowns on the edge of Lima, a lot of derelict buildings and villages along the coast and some huge chicken coops. Pisco was hit by a massive earthquake in 2007 and 80% of buildings in the town were destroyed. Since then there have been protests and strikes as money that the government promised to rebuild the town either hasn't materialised or has been pocketed by corrupt officials. Around ...

When I was in Ecuador many of local people had told me that I would hate Lima, that it was dangerous and not a nice place, but my experience was completely to the contrary - I really enjoyed Lima and would have liked to have had an extra couple of days there. I enjoyed a luxury bus for the journey down the Pan-American Highway to Lima - big, comfy reclining seats with air hostess-type staff who served food (a tasty lomo saltado - beef fried with onion, tomato an...

We carried on south along the coast of Peru in the evening, enjoying the beautiful sunset; the landscape in between towns was semi-desert, reminiscent of South Africa. Later it started raining heavily so we were delayed and didn't arrive at Huanchaco until around 2am. The next day we visited some archaeological sites and were guided around by a crazy French lady, Ozelyne, who told us all about local customs and traditions as we were driving around. Firstly we we...