Peru

We spent 3 weeks in Peru in total including Cusco, Arequipa, Nazca, Lima, Trujillo and Mancora. Nick has written a couple of articles about the trekking we did near Cusco and the Nazca Lines.

In Arequipa we visited the Santa Catalina Convent by candlelight in the evening. The convent is a small town within the city which accommodated nuns when this was considered a career path for wealthy young women. These days there only 30 nuns living in much less lavious conditions than their predecessors and most of the convent is open to the public. It is a very peaceful and beautiful place. We also did a two day tour of Colca Valley and Canyon from Arequipa of which the highlight was seeing the Andean condor soaring on the thermals over the canyon.

In Lima we spent our time relaxing in the parks along the cliffs in Miraflores, ten pin bowling and seeing X-men: First Class at the cinema. We also visited Huaca Pucllana adobe pyramid which is impressively well preserved.

From Lima we headed North to Ecuador breaking the journey at two beach resorts. First, Huanchaco near Trujillo and then Mancora near the border. Huanchaco is a small fishing village which is also good for surfing. I had my first ever surfing lesson here and thoroughly enjoyed it. I managed to stand up and surf into the shore on my first couple of goes but after I got tired later on in the lession I could no longer do it. Hopefully, I'll have chance to try again elsewhere. Also near Trujillo are the Moche monuments, Huaca de Sol and Huaca de Luna. The Huaca de Luna has been extensively exacavated as in 1990 colourful painted walls of the temple were discovered. It was built around 400 AD and the colours are still extremely vivid.

Further up the coast is Mancora, a surf, kite surf and party beach resort town. It has a long white sandy beach and warm waters as it benefits from the tropical currents and is not influenced by the colder southern currents of the Pacific. The time of the year was wrong for surfing and the waves were small so I didn't get another lesson here. Instead we spent two days lounging on the beach, swimming in the sea and watching the sunset form our clif top bungalow. We stayed in Kon Tiki bungalows which has a perfect view and the Swiss/Peruvian couple that own it are lovely.