On the Saturday I ended up going to a hospital in Lima before my tour started. My stomach wasn't great at all and I just needed to see a doctor but they didn't seem to want to send me to a local one, so hospital it was. They were very efficient as it was a private one, so they got me on some meds and then I was off. I headed straight to the new hotel to meet my new group and relax a bit. Lizzie is the girl in my room who is lovely and we get on really well. We had our welcome meeting at 7 and met the others. There's Carl (Australian), Tom (English), Daniel (Swiss), two other older English ladies who could no longer join as one of the ladies broke her collarbone the night before. Then Jimmy and David, two trainee CEOs for G Adventures (Peruvian) and then Rudy, our guide for the next 21 days. Our trip has been split into different sections so we'll have different CEOs (Chief Experience Officer) then. We all went out for dinner to get to know each other better but afterward we headed back for an early night, which I was grateful for as I still wasn't feeling great.

The next morning we left fairly late for our public bus heading to the city of Pisco down the coast. We stayed in the Paracas area which was right on the sea and beautiful. By the time we got there it was already early evening so not much time to do anything. We went to a local sea food restaurant and all tried fish as its the speciality of the area. We had a wander down the front before hitting the hay.

The next morning we had a boat ride out to the nearby Balestas islands which are populated by sea lions, pelicans, penguins and hundreds of small bird species. We got in really close to the animals and had a short trip around the island. It was a gorgeous day which made the scenery even better. Once back on land we had to catch a private transfer which would eventually up in Nasca at the end of the day. Our first stop was a pisco winery where we had a tour and demonstration of how it's made, we also had a tasting session, but some of them were very very strong and not pleasant straight. Our next stop was amazing. We went to Huacachina which is an oasis in the desert where we went sand buggying and boarding! It was so much fun, the dunes were enormous and some of them had very steep edges that we went over! The boarding was terrifying and we went down the dunes at super fast speeds. The sand was incredibly hot as well so it started burning my legs! Unfortunately that part went too quick and we were back at the oasis. Lizzie and I hopped in the swimming pool to cool off before we had some lunch. Back in the car we were all a bit sleepy and dozed off before we hit our next stop which was a lookout at some of the famous Nasca lines. They were pretty cool and the sun was setting so it was very beautiful. When we arrived in the town of Nasca it was now dark so we dropped bags and freshened up. In desperate need of a good shower after the sand boarding. We went out for dinner with another G Adventures group as well who are all lovely and doing a similar route to ours. It was nice to have a larger group, and they'd done some of the earlier activities in the day with us too.

The next morning was very relaxed. We didn't have any activities till the afternoon so Lizzie, Hilde and I decided to spend the morning by the hotel pool catching some rays and reading. The others had all opted to do the flight over the Nasca lines but I wasn't especially fussed. After some lunch, we went to the Cauchilla Cemetery to have a tour of graves of mummies that were buried out in the desert. Some of them even had their long hair still. Our guide told us that most of the graves had been robbed so the riches had all been taken many years ago. There was a mummified parrot as well which was quite something. On our way back to the hotel we stopped in a gold factory and a pottery factory. We got demonstrations on how they are produced which was interesting. Back to basics, and not fancy machinery. Afterwards we went straight out for dinner and a quick walk around the town before we had to catch our night bus to Arequipa.