Day 4/5 - Overnight bus to Peru's 2nd largest city in the mountains, Arequipa! Knowing that our bus for the night was to be a double decker with us on the top deck, I was somewhat dreading the experience and was half wondering if I would make the journey! It ended up not being total hell, it got pretty hot at one point and I almost exited out the window but thanks to Louisa whose second language is Spanish she managed to get the guy to open the door for abit whic...

Day 4 - The mystical ancient desert shapes of the Nazca Lines! The next day we headed towards the town of Nazca where the infamous Nazca lines exist, strange etched mystical shapes of spiders, monkeys, spacemen etc.. in the desert floor from over 2000 years ago. On route to the town we passed many old cars, battered & very overloaded trucks and the typical minute yellow taxi's, following the highway it was like we were on a road within an endless desert, it j...

Day 3 - Seals, dolphins, penguins and a few million birds on the Ballestas Islands! An early start saw us travelling for an hour back down the coast heading for a small fishing village where boats then whisk you round the Ballestas (meaning 'arches' in Spanish) Islands, a National Reserve famous for their dolphins, seals, penguins, sea lions and an array of over 4 million sea birds! The land again on route consisted of dry mountain sand dunes and the occasional s...

Day 2 - Down the coast to the vast sand dunes of Huacachina and crazy dune buggying n boarding! After an early breakfast we bundled the bags into our min van then headed for the local bus station! A slight fear on my part as to what lay ahead but thankfully we had allocated seats and the windows opened so I was happy!! Heading out of Lima was a sad sight to say the least, the poverty within Peru was worse than we expected and as we headed following the coast, the...

SOUTH AMERICA - OUR LAST CONTINENT!!! Destination 16 - Peru & and the arrival of mum and Ian! That morning after our last slop of refried beans and 4 hour earlier than most arrival at the airport we checked into our Taca plane, only a small plane but I got front seats, phew! Valiumed up we had a good flight, Ads got lots of free beer so that's always a good sign and as we flew towards Peru the sunset was just amazing it was as if hot red lava was floating in ...