31 August 13
DAY 115

Just finished our 2 week adventure through Peru, beginning on the Northern border with Ecuador and following the coast past Lima cutting in around Nazca following the Eastern road to Cusco and Lake Titicaca finally the Bolivian border.  During this time, we successfully crossed the Andes in the Cavalier, which most laughed at and I now proudly boast of, as well as nearly hitting 10,000 miles traveled on the car.

Northern coastal Peru is a desert of clay, rocks and dirt, traveling south with deserted beaches on your right and mountains of rock of different shades of brown on your left.  It reminded me of Afghanistan minus the pristine ocean nearly untouched my tourism.  As of now, there is only Mancora and Lobitos that are tourist destinations, with much of the rest only inhabited by fishing communitites.  The difference in landscape between Southern Ecuador and Northern Peru is in complete contrast.  Long fields of banana trees fill Southern Ecuador along the Pan-Americn and before that spralling shades of green tumbling over mountains.  Once across the border, this quickly changed to the dirt and rock i have already described.

We visited the surfing communities of Mancora, Lobitos and further south to the area of Trujillo with a beach just north of the city that was suppossed to claim the crown for the longest left break in the world.  Lobitos sported the most difficult entry point, leading us for a few hours well into night across cliffs and down roads of sand leaving the car almost immovable in several places and the girls scared at the sight of every car and every face, expecting the worse.  I began to plan for the worse being in such a deserted location with our armed robbery fresh in my head.  All was well and unfortunately for me, the surfing conditions were horrible, the waves mostly being flat and the weather cold and foggy.  We had little time to wait, so sadly my dream to surf in Peru will need to wait until one of the next adventures.

Lima is a massive city that took us well over an hour to navigate to our hostal.  Lima lies next to the ocean with a gigantic cliff between much of the city and the sandy beaches offering amazing views of the landscapes unique to the city.  Another gem the city offers, is the final resting place of Fransisco Pizarro the conquering conquistador of the Incas and the founder of the city.  Interesting enough, inside the Lima Cathedral, the body that was exhumed and on display as Pizarro since 1892 was discovered to not be the man when his actual body was found within the church's foundations in 1977.

After Lima, we cut into the mainland stopping next at Nazca to see the ancient Nasca Lines (400-650 AD) etched into the desert floor.  From our elevated observation point along the highway, we were able to see the Hands and the Tree.  Even missing most of the other ancient drawings, I was able to see the ability and imagination of these Nasca people through their astrological work.  Some experts claim these lines were created to help determine the seasons while others espouse a more radical theory involving ancient aliens, but their is little concrete evidence so conjectures abound.

About 30 minutes outside Nazca along the road to Cuzco, is the largest sand dune in the world at a height larger than 2000 meters.  We decided this was going to be our first sandboarding experience and it took over 3 hours to walk across rock and sand to this monstrous peak before boarding down the bottom below.  We took a few practice tries to get our bearings before going down the last 800 meter drop to test our new skills.

Cuzco, the ancient capital of the Incas and the stopping point for all visiting Machu Picchu, is layed with cobblestone streets and colorful plazas in its Centro Historico.  While we were there, the weather was dry and cool durig the day but became freezing at night, warranting all the layers in my inventory.  It was here that I tried Cuy or Guinea Pig for the first time and must say that it tasted a lot like chicken.  It was also here that we began to see coca products more abundantly (brownies, tea, candy, chocolate, etc).

Very quickly we ventured to Machu Picchu via Aguas Caliente, the premier tourist location for myself, as well as, most tourists in Latin America.  The ruins and the landscape did not dissapoint.  The beauty of this ancient city surrounded by mountains of dark green on all sides with even the city perched upon a natural plateau that quickly descended to river valleys below is uncanny.  This trip to Machu Picchu was the longest we spent admiring any ruins in Latin America by an enormous amount, 7 hours compared to a distant second at Tikal, Guatemala with 3 and a half hours.

The last town we visited on our route to Bolivia landed us on Lake Titicaca in a town called Puno, where we tied up our Bolivian visas and visited the Islas de Uros on the lake, a group of artificial floating islands made of reeds harvested by the Uru people from nearby.  It was an interesting feeling when first jumping off the boat onto the soft reflexive reed island.  A nice crunch sound accompanied every step.  We found outfrom the local people that they in fact add another layer of reeds weekly to stay above the water because the bottom continually dissolves from the water.  Also, each island has large wooden posts drilled into the lake bed attached to their island; as well as, ropes attaching island to island so the "floating" islands in fact stay stationary.