Chan Chan and there were the ruins - Huanchaco, Peru - June 2011

Huaca De La Luna and Chan Chan

The pier at Huanchaco. The waves, which were good for surfing, apparently, came in almost at right angles to the coast. This picture almost captures it...

The mountain, where legend has it a giant lizard, trying to eat the locals, got trapped.

The inside of the layered pyramids, which is almost 2000 years old.

The incredible wall of one of the pyramids, with it's huge reliefs.

The hairless Peruvian dog. You've got to either love it or hate it.

Chan Chan!

The Poor Man's Galapagos - Islas Balletas, Paracas, Peru - June 2011

We took a half day trip to the beautiful 'Poor Man's Galapagos' en route to our next destination on a night bus. Joe, Julia and Anna came too and had fun on their desert camping trip. We then continued our journey north on the ever so delightful 'Cruz del Sur' bus, the cream of the bus companies. As they say, you get what you pay for.

The cute penguins.

The even cuter baby seal. Or as they call them here, 'sea wolf'.

The dark shadow on the rock is thousands of birds.

Passing the time in Paracas whilst waiting for our bus to Lima and then onto Huanchaco.

Dune Buggy Adventure, Huacachina, Peru - June 2011

We took an overnight bus from the border town of Tacna to Huacachina and arrived in the early hours of the morning at the oasis town. The town was surrounded by amazing sand dunes, which we were to later explore by buggy and sandboard.

The famous land mark of Tacna. A pleasant border town in Peru.

Huacachina in the early morning light.

The beautiful calm oasis.



Some of the friends who we went sandboarding/buggy adventuring with.
L-R Joe (US), Julia (UK/France/various) and Anna (UK/France/Various).



Our clever driver, Jesus. We felt safe in his hands. He built the buggy from scratch.

Richard in his safety specs. Believe me, you needed them to protect your eyes from the wind of the buggy ride and the sand.

On your marks, get set...

Note, Richard's proper snowboard and my plank of wood. I went down the fun way - on my tummy. Well, I only went down the first slope as the others were all too steep and the buggy ride down was sooooo exciting. Like a roller coaster without the rails.

...GO,GO,GO!

More jumping escapades. This time Richard and Joe.

Some of the other friends we made on the sandboarding trip.
L-R Martin (English, living in Oz), Alyssa (USA), me, Tom (English), Johnny (English) and Richard. We had a great night of salsa with them. Our other friends had gone to camp in the desert overnight.

A salsa teacher came out with us - not sure what good it did!

Over the Andes once more to Arica, Chile - June 2011

One of the many amazing views from the bus as we drove though the National Park in The Andes, which straddled Bolivia and Chile. Everyone throws rubbish out of their windows around here, and we are used to seeing carrier bag forests, particularly in Bolivia, but it was a real shame to see the bus driver doing it in this beautiful National Park.

There was a series of very precarious hair pin bends on the route and this lorry didn't make one.
These men left from our bus and walked down. We thought they may have been investigators at first, but on second glance they looked more like they were there to take what they could find.

Arica didn't have a huge amount going on in the town, but we did find this delicious chocolate stall in a market.

We are getting pretty good at this jumping lark now! And using the camera to mislead.

This church was designed by Gustav Eiffel.

The stand up comic from our bus to Peru. He was very amusing and picked on Richard for one of his jokes.

Problems at the border - La Paz, Bolivia - June 2011

We took our luxurious flight to La Paz and checked back into the delightful Arty's Guest House, where Arty remembered us from last time.

The cheese buffet restaurant in La Paz. Richard should never have had this big beer - it made him get altitude sickness though.

The four hour bumpy ride to Tiwanaku, it was supposed to be an hour and a half. One of the roads was closed and there was much  heated debate between the locals and the bus driver as to which route was the 'best' - in Bolivian terms. After cutting across traffic a few times and several quick swerves, we seemed to take a route which nobody was happy with.

The entrance. Richard with the two French lads who enjoyed our adventure with us.

Erlend made another friend, Dinosaur.

The famous 'Sun Door'.

There were some amazing monoliths there. Inside the museum (where no photos were allowed), there was a gigantic on, about ten metres high. In the museum we became swamped by local school children. The girls were very sweet and wanted to practice their English and find out about us, the boys just wanted to shout 'Hello baby' to Richard. It did make us laugh!

Waiting for the infrequent minibus back. Several had left the small town and bypassed the museum ( we could see them temptingly coming towards us only to turn of 100 metres up the road). Eventually, Richard and I walked into the town, found one and made it go via the museum to collect the Frenchmen.

With our time we had left, we thought we might take a three day trip to the Bolivian jungle. However, for a few weeks we had been hearing from fellow travellers of the Lake Titicaca border between Peru and Bolivia being blockaded by the Peruvians protesting about the elections.

Every person you talked to said something different - it appeared that some days people could get through, others they couldn't. We decided not to chance it as we had already been this way and took a short (8 hours) detour south  via Arica in Chile. As it turned out, this worked in our favour as it led us along the Pacific coast, which we may have missed and another amazing Andes crossing.

Return to the Land of Dreadful Buses, Santa Cruz, Bolivia - June 2011

We took a 24 hour bus from Asuncion to Santa Cruz, Bolivia. This turned out to be one of the most uncomfortable rides to date. The bus was old, dirty and not very comfortable (although at least it had a toilet) and a bit of a chicken bus stopping all the time for people to get on and off, with luggage which seemed like it should have been in the hold.
We thought driving through the Chaco in Paraguay would be interesting, but along the roadside, there is not much to see but what looks like scrub land. We left Paraguay at 4am, after aimlessly wandering around border control for 10 minutes, before someone from the bus told us we had to go around the fence and down the dirt track...'Of course it's there and not in the office before us we thought!' A wild boar was there to greet us too and tried to get on the bus - he seemed quite tame.
The Bolivian border control came about 3 hours after and was a shack in the middle of nowhere on a sand road. Much of the way to Santa Cruz was on sand and dirt roads, so quite bumpy, but fun in some places.
Santa Cruz was a very pleasant town. Very different to what we had seen of Bolivia so far, it could have been a different country. There were not many indigenous people around, which made it feel like many other South American countries. Everything seemed much cleaner and smarter and there was certainly more development. The town still retained a charm in around the main plaza though, with beautiful colonial buildings, carefully restored. One day was enough to see everything though.
We decided we could not face a 24 hour bus ride to La Paz though and treated ourselves to an internal flight with TAM for the princely sum of £54.

The Bolivian side of the Paraguayan-Bolivian border crossing.
This was a typical 'main' road in Bolivia.

The restaurant where we lunched twice in Santa Cruz. A gorgeous old colonial building. They had a delicious set menu which cost about £1.50, although the lemonade tasted of lavender.

The main plaza, Santa Cruz.

Two Hundred Years in One Whole Day, Asuncion, Paraguay - June 2011

We arrived in the Capital City late in the evening, after a dreadful 8 hour bus ride from Encarnacion. We rode with one of Paraguay's top bus companies and were sorely disappointed. An uncomfortable chicken bus that stopped everywhere there was a house and nearly broke down (amazingly, after coming so close to breaking down and going uphill at about 15 MPH, it seemed to miraculously fix itself. It must have been the driver's sticker, 'I drive the bus, Jesus guides me,' that helped us. We nipped out for food to a great retro restaurant called 'Lido' for steak and eggs, and then back to our bed.

We wandered around Asuncion for most of the day, just managing to find enough to do to keep us busy with a long lunch in the middle. The city is pleasant enough and feels very safe, but there is not much of interest for us as tourists.

'What can I get you sir?'
The old train car. 

A highlight in one of the cultural centres!

Football shirts hanging out for sale in the centre of town.

Richard by the beautiful Governor's Palace.

Everything is draped in flags and ribbons to celebrate 200 years of independence.

The most beautiful building in town, The Governor's Palace.

A very big flag camouflages Richard.

One of the cultural centres from the outside.