Whirlwind Adventures: March 2009

Friday, March 27, 2009

Ariquipa and Chivay

Had a night bus yesterday from Nasca and arrived in Arequipa thismorning about 7. Yesterday i went to the Nasca cemetary i was telling you about...crazy!! it was just a huge lpot of desert, with a few little flax roofed buildings covering pits full of mummies. they were all really well preserved because the desert is so dry...they only get 6mm rain a year. But in the space between all the huts there were just rocks and then bones scattered everwhere from graverobbers looting the place. there were skulls and stuff just laying around. It was so weird. In new zealand stuff like that would be in a museum or something! the mummies were all very creapy. i dont even know what to say about them... they were all buried in the seated position facing east and lots had really long dreads. There were baby tombs and in one there was a parrot buried with its owner. Ill put photos up sometime , it just takes so long to upload them so im a little behind. but after the cemetary we had a quick look at the little museum there, where they had the two best preserved mummies... one was 1500years old, and still had all its features. Creapy. then there was a baby wrapped in cloth. After than we made our way back to the hotel, saw the sunset on the way past, just. Then hung around at the hotel with Natalie and Pat, the two new girls on the tour. Theyr the most fun! glad that theyve joined us. Then we went to a observatory to see a lecture about the theories behind the nasca lines. It was really really interesting but twas just so hot in the little room that i couldnt concentrate after about 40minutes. Then we had dinner at the hotel resturant.theres an amazing entree that is avocado stuffed with potato salad, ill make it for you, mum sometime! so good.then caught our night bus. there were some spectacular views but i was just too tired.
Had a rest in the morning before a breakfast at an amazing café , i had banana pancakes, the best kind. The ladies that worked there were so lovely. Then we had a city tour in the afternoon. This consisted of a walk around the plazas and lunch at a great resturant, a 3 course meal for 12 soles...around 7 NZ. There was a salad that tasted like heaven , it had broad beans and onion and tomato and all kinds of deliscous things. then an omlet.
Claires bag got stolen at that point. That was a downer. at least her passport and credit card and things werent in it. but her camera and Mp3 player were. She and nicky went to the police station and the rest of us walked to a lookout. we never found it and i went home coz my neck was sore . Had pizza for dinna at a great bar that had happy hour two for 1 Pisco sours. so i had one of those too. then went home and had an early night.

ok gona be quick coz its cold here, at the moment im in a tiny internet place and its freezing cold outside...we are at 2700metres above sealevel..i think. and my fingers are numb...but i bought gloves today! and i need a hat. hopefully im going to get pizza for dinner hehe. ooo my fingers...sorry for the spelling :PWe left at830 thismorn and it was the best bus ride ever..we sung all kinds of hits from the 90s that i havnt heard in ages, and we had cocoa tea and beautiful chocolate, coz theres a milk factory in Arquipa so its proper milk , not that powder stuff you get everywhere else. i patted a dog today. it was sooo cute i couldnt help myself. and i saw donkeys . and i climbed on ruins and i built an offering for the gods in the mountains..it was really amature though, it was a pile of rocks but it toppled when i walked away. We went up to 5000metres today, really neuseating, got dizzy but then had cocoa. i saw a kid with a baby llama. and it went on the road and he was trying to pull it off but it was as big as him..his name was wilber and i gave him my pencil. we saw a rabbit. and ...what else...no flamingos yet, but i cant wait. smells like meat here, theres markets outside. i had a huge conversation with a lady at one of the stalls...in spanish!! and in the hills today there was a lady herding sheep and she came up over the hill and was laughing, she was themost beautiful person! then we tried to talk to her for a while but we arnt very good at spanish. so big day. and tomorriow hopefully ill see condors at Condor Cross. exciting!!!

Thursday, March 26, 2009

More photos. Alausi to Huanchaco, Trujillo

The coast near Lima.

A vulture standing over tombs.

And the best of all, Sunken Gardens. The wells used by the people for irrigation and drinking water. Its contaminated these days.

Corridors

Fish nets

The fish relief at Chan Chan

Reliefs in the courtyard of the Chan Chan palace

Chan Chan, some of the most amazing ruins in Peru. And this is just the path to the entrance.

Nicky on a warf in Peru. She was excited. There were great views... And Jill our travel companion warned us of bristly kisses from the security guard, but we managed to avoid them.

I was putting my gersey on in Huanchaco.

Sunset in Huanchaco, a small town outside of Trujillo. There was lots of surfers and then birds flew past.

After a swim in the ocean. The waves were a battle. Nicky is in the background...a broken woman.

Sunset in Tumbes, Peru. The peruvian dogs were running everywhere and the sun was only visible for a short time between the clouds and the ocean. It was a lot brighter than this photo shows though.

The girls...all tuckered out after a long day and a long wait for dinner. They built card towers with the menus, and had all kinds of fun.

Alberto, the famous panama hat maker.

Cuenca city tour with our guide David. His laugh was like a machine gun and made everyone laugh. those are the best kinds of laughs.

The track changer guy hanging out the back after dropping off some locals with their bags full of plants.

The devils nose...its a big rock. Nice scenery, like New Zealand a little. Very green.

Leaving Alausi on the Devils Nose Tramride

A gorgous little girl that came up to us, just sat down on claires lap, and started trying to punch us in the face. Cute!

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Trujillo to Lima

Ok, so Friday we spent in Huanchaco, a small fishing town just outside Trujillo. The place we stayed was really nice, there was an incredible restaurant that was great quality for money and a pool, and free internet and the beach was just across the road. The only bad thing about the place was that now im completely covered in bed bug bite. I dont know why , but for some reason im the only one to get hit by the little guys... the girls avoided them fine.
Friday morning we went on a tour of Chan Chan, the ruins of a Muchi city. It was discovered in 1960 and since then they have been trying to clear away all the sand that buiried it. Its a big city and they havnt even restored one of the 9 palaces yet. So theres quite a lot of work to be done.
The walls of all the buildings are made from adobe bricks, and so recent el niños have done a lot of damage and a lot of city now looks like plain, old, everyday dirt mounds.
Because they were a coastal culture, all the Muchi reliefs were of things like fish and fishing nets and pelicans and catfish. Really amazing, ill put some pictures up soon.
My favourite thing about the entire thing was the wells. Because all the land here is desert, the people had to use the water from the rivers for irrigation by making man made streams and things. But inside the city they had huge rectangle wells, maybe 8metres deep , and around the outside theres a spiraling ramp for the people to get to the water. They used it for drinking water and for the crops and animals, but these days its contaminated. We walked down one of the long sandfilled corridors with high adobe walls then a huge open area full of water...like an oasis. Incredible. The head archeologist named them Sunken Gardens when they discovered Chan Chan.
The Inca conquered the city in the late 1400´s and apparently the people didnt put up much of a fight. Noone did to the Incas from what i can tell. The occupied Chan Chan for 50years, until the spanish conquest.
The Muchi people had tombs with steps , which is unusual because it means that people can go down into the tomb. This meant that during the spanish conquest the incas exploited all the Muchi gold first for the Inca ransom.
What else...i think thats all i can remember . Sorry its all facts...check out nickys blog for descriptions of the place itself.

Yesterday, saturday, we had a long 9hour bustrip from huanchaco to Lima. We were told 7-8 hours so we got quite impatient by the end. But i watched two movies, Brother Bear and Bucket list, both were really good.

We had a pretty short city tour thismorning, just followed the guide around the plazas. But thenm we went to an amazing cathedral with catacombs! o00ooo , the best type of comb. There were wholes in walls that look into rooms that were just full of bones. . the floors were covered, and the bones were dry and i wondered what noise they would make if you dropped something into them. It was so tempting. there was a brick well shaped area that was where the archeologists layed out a lot of the bones, so they were arranged in a big circle, with femurs and humerous and tibias and all sorts of bones ,and rings of skulls. It was pretty cool. There were 25,000 Lima civilians buried in this particular catacombs and theres heaps more around the city for the elite. In the cathedral there was one private tomb of a benefactor that had the coffin, on top was a skull and crossbones (of whom i dont know) and then around the coffin was the family... who were all uncovered. So strange, but very interesting.We went to Miraflores this afternoon, the fancy part of town. The lunch place chosen by the group was fancy so Nicky claire and i broke off and i had an amazing big veggy sandwhich and fruit salad with yogurt. mmm.
Then we headed to the mall, its kinda on a cliff face, the roof is a courtyard plaza type thing , with binoculars and fountains, and then you decend the stairs and bam! a fancy shopping complex!
We wandered around there for a while, i had a deliscous cookie. The others had icecream.
Twas really hot because the whole thing is open, and the weather here hot today, the sea breeze made quite a difference though.
Just got supermarket dinner yuss