27 - Lima and Huacachina (Peru)

I woke up at 3:15 AM on February 11 and took a taxi to the Bogotá airport. From there I took a three hour plane ride to Lima, Peru. In Lima I stayed in a hostal that I read about in my book Lonely Planet. When I got to the hostal it turned out to really just be a family´s apartment with an extra room with five beds in it. The family was very nice, and gave me a map of the city and highlighted landmarks. Also staying in the ¨hostal¨were two boys from Denmark (Jon and Kasper) and a boy from France (Tristan). I spent two days with them exploring Lima and learning about Denmark and France. One thing that I really love about backpacking is that I´m not only learning a lot about the country I´m visiting, but I´m learning so much about the rest of the world. I´ve met people from all over, and it´s incredible how backpacking makes the world feel so much smaller.



This is a photo of Plaza de Armas, Lima´s main square.

Here´s a photo of a small shop selling typical Peruvian souvenirs. One of these things is not for sale.

Houses in the mountains just outside of Lima.

Miraflores is an area within Lima that´s located on these cliffs overlooking the ocean. There are lots of expensive hotels and restaurants in this area.

My friends Kasper and Jon went paragliding off the cliffs. I would have loved to have done it, but it was pretty expensive for just a short ride. Looked like lots of fun though.

I didn´t paraglide, but I did surf. Who knew there was surfing in Lima? I sure didn´t. The waves in this picture are really small, but I went out further and they were bigger. It was a great day.

Another beautiful sunset in South America. It never gets old.

The famous ¨kiss¨statue with the sun setting over the ocean in the background. How romantic... gag.

While walking around Lima we came across a dance rehearsal.

The boys I hung out with in Lima. (L to R) Darag from Ireland, Jon and Kasper from Denmark, and Tristan from France. We enjoyed a concert in the park while drinking some delicious Peruvian beer (Peru has good beer).

From Lima I took a 5 hour bus to Ica. Here are a couple pictures that I snapped on the bus drive.

5 km from Ica is a small touristy town called Huacachina. The town is basically just a small lake surrounded by restaurants and hotels/hostals and then surrounded by a huge desert of sand dunes.

The sand dunes were incredible. I took a sandbuggy tour of the desert, and it was so fun speeding up and down the dunes. I had my hands up like I was on a rollercoaster the entire time.

We also got to sandboard down the dunes. AMAZING. I went head first down some of the dunes and rode the board like a snowboard on others. The video (below) of me ¨snow¨boarding is on one of the first dunes, which was pretty small. The dunes got bigger and steeper as we went along and the last dune we rode down was incredible. It was like a 500 foot waterslide made out of sand and I sped down head first smiling and getting a mouth full of sand. I was so sandy by the end of the day. My shoes had more sand than feet.

The next day I went on a wine vineyard tour. We went to two different bodegas and got lots of free tastings at each. We also got tastings of pisco, which is a famous liquor in Peru and is 44% alcohol.

The first bodega we went to, Tacama, is the oldest vineyard in South America. It has been running since the 1500´s. After the two bodegas and all the wine and pisco tastings I went back to my hostal and took a lovely long nap.


Well my time in Peru has been great so far. Can´t wait for more.