9th-10th

The following morning M&D had to leave the hostel at 10:30 so we only had the morning together. It was so nice to see them and we will miss them so much. It was an amazing two weeks where we were truly spoilt with food, treats and great company. Looking forward to New Zealand even more now!

We said goodbye and I moped around for the rest of the day. We watched what we thought was their plane take off, as it turns out they were really delayed so we have a photo of a random plane! James and I booked our bus to Ica for tomorrow night and did some more wandering. The rest of our time we went back to a few of the favourite eateries. On the 10th

the weather wasn't nice by the afternoon (it reflected my mood!) so to get out of the cold we went for another massage, we knocked the price right down and the girls kept hinting that there is a tip box. We were back on a tight budget so didn't leave anything!

11th-13th

We got a night bus from Cuzco to Ica and then went straight to Huacallana where we spent two nights chilling out in the lovely hot weather. Huacallana is a small oasis in the middle of a sand dune desert. It is a lovely place and very different to anything either of us has seen before. The first afternoon we went sand boarding which was loads of fun, even the transportation up and down the dunes was a big dune buggy with a crazy driver. We both attempted to board properly and even with my snowboard experience it wasn't very successful. Some of the other people were going down on their bellies. We tried and it was so much more fun I was whooping and cheering the whole way down! We were on the sand dunes for sunset and it was really beautiful.

The next day we went on a day trip to the poor man's Galapagos; Isla Ballestas. The trip was on a small boat and we didn't get off but we saw a lot of wildlife including penguins, sea lions, pelicans and lots of other birds. My favourite was the Blue footed Booby, Peru knows how to name birds! I am glad we couldn't get off as I have never seen so many birds in one place there were millions of them. The nickname for the islands by Peruvians is Bird Poo Island and you can see why it is covered in the stuff. We got snorted on by a giant male sea lion and watched flocks of other types of birds (I cannot remember the name) we headed back to Huacallana.

We had enjoyed a BBQ at our hostel on the first night, which was amazing and included asparagus-yes! A guy from the hostel informed me that this area of Peru is one of few places that exports asparagus, I found this very interesting. We also tried some of the local restaurants but after eating lunch at one we then had to find any excuse to avoid it because one of the waiters had a massive man crush on James. Every time we went past he put his arm around James, cuddled him and shook his hand, they were nearly onto third base by the time we left!