Land of the Incas

First of all, thank you so much for all your comments - we're so happy when we see them and we're really sorry that we haven't been better updating the blog... Guess it's because we've been so busy exploring Peru ;-)

Surprisingly, right at the beginning of our stay in Peru we realised that we were now travelling on "the Gringo Trail" meaning the trail in South America that is most popular to backpackers. All the time travelling through Peru we have always been part of a group of young people travelling together; never just the two of us.

Our first cultural experience in Peru was in the surfer's town of Huanchaco, situated nearly on the beach in the desert of northern Peru. Here we stayed with four others from four different nations; Mona, Josh, Arent and Monica from Norway, Canada, Holland and Austria. With them we rented a taxi-driver for a whole day visiting the ruins in the area, to be highlighted "Chan Chan" (the biggest pre-Inca mud city in the world) and "Huaca del Sol y Luna" (amazing pre-Inca pyramids still in archeological investigation and development). After this demanding day we made each other the promise of no more ruins until Machu Picchu :-)
Next stop was Huaraz in the Andes joined by Arent and Monica. Huaraz is a center of outdoor activities situated 3091 meters above sealevel and surrounded by the highest snowcapped mountains in Peru. Here we took a nice trip to the stunning lake of "Llanganuco" which was quite interesting because of its turqouise/green colours and the breathtaking mountains and glaciers surrounding it.
From Huaraz a nightbus took us to Lima where we stayed three nights at a great youth hostel with lots of activities and social life. We did'nt get much chance of enjoying this though, since Tinna decided to be very ill with high fever and was forced to stay in bed. To be mentioned, Elka was an amazing private nurse during these boring days ;-)
As soon as Tinna was better we headed south to Ica in the desert and from here to the tiny oasis of Huacachina - and we had found another paradise!!! We truly though that this kind of place only excisted in cartoons! Huacachina is a laguna in the middle of desert with palmtrees and a couple of houses, this little oasis surrounded by enourmous mountains of light sand! The oasis was extremely peaceful and the only thing you could see was the desert. We stayed at a nice hippie-hostel with an amusing little monkey, turtles and a relaxing swimmingpool - fully enjoyed after the cold highlands :-)
Huacachina was also the place giving us a great rush of adrenaline. We went driving in a dunebuggy (open car made to drive fast in the desert) and sandboarding down the mountains of sand. Driving in the dunebuggy was like a rollercoaster-ride and the sandboarding was a true thrill aswell! Though we, because of our laking boarding-skills, mostly did the sandboarding on our tummies ;-) It is really difficult for us to describe this amazing experience in words - we can just say: you could go to Peru only for this! :-)
On this trip we met two american girls, Sarah and Paula, and two guys from Australia and England, Ben and Jake. The following very special day (BIRTHDAY!) we travelled to Nazca joined by Ben, Jake and Arent (our dutch friend from Vilcabamba). In Nazca the five of us took a tiny propel-airplain (with only five seats) over the historical Nazca lines. Both the plainride and seeing the lines was a big experience, though we were almost puking during the 45 minutes long turbulent ride ;-)
We wanted to go straight to Cuzco the following night and therefore we booked a cheap nightbus at 9 pm. After waiting at the busstation for two hours, the bus finally arrived. We jumped on in a hurry and the bus took of emidiately. After a couple of minutes in the stinky old bus we realised that there was no seats for the five of us! And this was going to be a busride for 18 hours... Five minutes after take-off the bus stopped for "dinner-break". We were very dissapointed, shocked and a bit terrified, so we took a quick group discussion and agreed on taking a taxi back to Nazca. 18 hours in a bus with the risk of theft and on dangerous roads, we were more than willing to take the chance of not getting another bus and/or loosing our money. Fortunately, back in Nazca we found a reliable bus company and in addition got a little discount on the expensive tickets :-) So we learned from this unpleasant experience; don't trust the cheap bus companies - though it looks good on the posters! ;-)
Saturday afternoon we arrived in Cuzco after 18 hours of beautisleeping in the luxurious bus of "Cruz del Sur" ;-) We went straight to the recommended youth hostel "Loki" and here we were told about a great 80's party in the hostel the following night. We were tempted right away and went straight to the secondhand stores of Cuzco downtown. Here we found the ugliest clothes ever and with some imagination and scissors we had the coolest 80's outfits ever! ;-) We had a night of great fun with several of the people we had met earlier on our travel in Peru.
The next days were spent relaxing and enjoying the international atmosphere at the hostel and the cosy town of Cuzco. This is where we are now and tomorrow morning we will start hiking the four-days long "Inca Trail" to the lost city of "Machu Picchu".

Hope you are all well... Hasta luego amigos!