Peru by www.born2travel.it

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14.02.2015 Lima (Peru)

[Stefy]: 'A long daytime flight via Madrid takes us to the capital of this wonderful country of the Andes! Fifteen km through its chaotic streets, its squares packed with lovers holding heart-shaped balloons or huge, cumbersome soft toys. It's Valentine's Day in Lima too! People everywhere, young people spilling along every little street, crowding all the bars and restaurants! Our first evening in Peru!'

15.02.2015 Lima (Peru)

[Stefy]: 'Early in the morning we begin our visit of Lima. The centre is resting after the night of revelry just past! So many colonial churches with an ancient charm; here is the Complex of the Church of San Francisco, dating from the 16th century and containing a series of very sinister catacombs.

We arrive just in time to watch the changing of the presidential guard in the Plaza de Armas. It too retains the flavour of a now-distant past!

Time to repack our backpacks and we set off for the Anthropological Museum... right opposite there's a little food fair... we certainly can't let an opportunity like that slip and here comes the first 'pisco sour'... the first of a long series...

Before continuing our journey towards Paracas, we stop in the Miraflores district for a relaxing stroll in one of the trendiest spots of the capital!'

16.02.2015 Nazca (Peru)

We board at 08.00 from Paracas to discover the Ballestas Islands, considered the little Galapagos, lying off the city of Pisco. I wasn't expecting such a surprising spectacle! Colonies of sea lions and fur seals laze on little ageless pebble beaches or on prehistoric rocks crammed with seaweed and guano. Majestic flocks of cormorants fly in every direction...

The sky is a blinding blue, the rare white clouds help make our photos even more picturesque; the calls of the animals, their smells captivate us and make us imagine the first explorers who, on old sailing ships, driven by the desire for discovery, set sail from distant ports towards unknown places!

We head back to the Paracas pier while a group of dolphins greets us not far from our boat...

An hour later we speed over the dune buggies in the sweltering desert of Huacachina... The drivers of these off-road vehicles are truly out of their minds! You climbed up enormous sand dunes and when you thought you had reached the peak of excitement: that's when the descent began, amid the shouts of my travel companions and the jolts in the back from the recoil!

We even manage some sand surfing on the big dunes! A hugely fun experience!

But the intense experiences are not meant to end yet today! The churning of the stomach has only just begun! After the waves of the sea and the dunes of the desert, the immensity of the sky awaits us!

Three hours of travelling through a lunar landscape disturbed only by the grey tongue of asphalt of the Panamericana bring us to the gates of Nazca. Shortly afterwards, aboard a Cessna 102, we leave runway 25 towards the first of some ten figures of mysterious charm.

Here's the whale! Incredible, what lies behind these lines of indefinite age! It is said that the Incas had great scientific knowledge... these lines remain, for the moment, one of the thousand mysteries of the world! The flight is quite demanding and puts our stomach to the test again! But it's time to relax a little and, strolling along the main avenue of this small village, we mingle with its people, breathing a very serene atmosphere!

17.02.2015 Arequipa (Peru)

Ten hours of travel await us today, which will soon turn into twelve because of various incidents along the way: first a convoy of eight lorries proceeding as an exceptional transport.... then the miners coming out of the various copper mines with which the area is so rich...

Travelling the 572 km that separate Nazca from Arequipa along the Panamericana, I was very struck by the hundreds of crosses at the roadside... It is a very demanding and dangerous route, lacking barriers and guard rails, without lighting, through rocky hills and with many narrow, uneven hairpin bends... How many souls this famous road has stolen...

Arequipa welcomes us with the coming and going of a serene Shrove Tuesday evening; we dine at 'Arequipay' and taste an excellent 'saltado de alpaca'.

I am exhausted and shortly afterwards I collapse into bed!

18.02.2015 Arequipa (Peru)

In twenty minutes on foot we reach the Mirador de Yanahuara. From here you enjoy a sublime view of the volcano 'El Misti', 5822 metres high, similar to Mount Fuji; it is truly impressive, it dominates the whole scene and fills you with awe!

Monastero de Santa Catalina. An enormous monastery of the Dominican nuns, very ancient and still in operation. They are cloistered nuns, but to meet the high maintenance costs of the monastery they have decided to open an area to the public! Our guide tells us numerous anecdotes and stories of the past, very gripping; in those days the second-born daughters of noble families were sent to these cloistered places accompanied by a servant and a rich dowry; having a daughter in a convent was a symbol of great pride for the family.

Museo Andino. The history of the ancient Incas and their traditions is told through the discovery of various bodies of children offered to the gods. The most famous, also because it is the best preserved, is Juanita, a girl who was sacrificed around 1450 and whose body was found in 1995 by a team of US scholars.

Not far away is the Mercado de San Camilo: they sold everything, even huge sacks of coca leaves! The fruit area is an explosion of colours, and the meat one is striking!

We keep wandering among the Iglesia de la Compania, the Plaza de Armas and the Cathedral all day long, but it is time to head back; tomorrow a 03.30 alarm awaits us!

19.02.2015 Chivay (Peru)

[Stefy]: 'We set off at dawn heading for Chivay! Towards five o'clock it starts to grow light just as we cross the Patapampa Pass (4910 metres). Along the way we saw numerous alpacas with the sweetest smiles and fleece so soft it looks like cotton.

In the morning we enter the Colca Reserve after various mishaps with our bus, which on more than one occasion got stuck on the difficult dirt track of the Reserve.

We do a trek of about 40 minutes during which we saw stunning landscapes. Numerous viewpoints where the eye plunged into the various canyons and precipices... The first signs of altitude sickness: a tight band around the head, shortness of breath and nausea... Once we reach the Cruz del Condor the wait begins! The sun is very strong, it's very hot and after two hours we can't manage to see even one, but then again nature is like that, it is unpredictable and cannot be commanded.

We set off again and after a couple of hours we reach our destination: Chivay! We leave our backpacks at the hotel and go straight to the hot springs; outside there's a bit of wind, the air is cool, but once we've put on our swimsuits we plunge into those sulphurous waters!

In the little village square the carnival party is in full swing; little groups of brightly dressed women circled around three trees playing and singing cheerful songs; in an adjacent street, women with long braids and wide skirts were cooking and selling herbs with little white flowers similar to chamomile.'

[ to be continued: ]