A Mission to Paraguay

We reluctantly left the stunning waterfalls at Iguazú to head south through Argentina's Misiones province. We wanted to stop at a small town called San Ignacio on the way to Paraguay as it has the ruins of an old Jesuit mission there. The Jesuits were very active in this part of the world, with 30 missions in Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. A few of them are now listed as world heritage sites so, obviously, we had to go.

The entrance to the church in San Ignacio in Argentina

The Jesuits started building missions in the Guaraní area in 1610, and continued up until they were expelled from South America by the Spanish empire in 1767. Their aim was to convert the native people to Christianity, but without imposing other European values on them. This was a significant difference from all of the other evangelising schemes of the time. We visited similar Jesuit missions in the east of Bolivia and on the island of Chiloé in Chile, although each location has distinct architecture. The churches in Bolivia and Chile are active to this day, but all that is left here are impressive red sandstone ruins.

The ruins in Trinidad in Paraguay

After we'd visited the ruin in San Ignacio, we went to withdraw some money before departing to Paraguay. This proved more difficult than we'd anticipated, however. The only two ATMs in town were empty of money, because it was a Sunday. No problem - we went on Monday morning instead. Where we found a looong queue of everybody else wanting money that couldn't get any at the weekend. Only one ATM was working now. When we got to the front of the line, the ATM ran out of money. Luckily, the hostel we stayed in let us pay in pounds, which we'd managed to not spend until now. This actually worked out okay for us - the ATMs in Argentina, after the fiasco of the Dolar Blue rate, now charge an 87 Peso (~£5) fee every time you use them, with a maximum withdrawal of 2000 Pesos (~£100). That's if you can find one that works and has money, of course.

Sunset over the Paraná River from Encarnación, Paraguay

We eventually escaped the fiscal peril of Argentina into Paraguay, where transactions are measured in thousands of Guaranis - there are 8000 Guaranis to £1. From the city of Encarnación, which is blessed with wonderful sunsets over the Paraná river, we went to visit the Paraguayan Jesuit ruins. These are very similar to the Argentine ones, but are bigger and better preserved. More importantly, they have a separate World Heritage Site listing, so we had to go there too.

Ornate Jesuit doorway in Trinidad, Paraguay

We're going to spend a bit more time in Paraguay, visiting a nature reserve and the capital Asunción. After that, we're returning to Argentina to explore the north of the country.

Learning To Dive In Taganga - Terrifying But Amazing

In our last post we were watching the world go by in sleepy Mompox. The past few days have been quite different. We went from Mompox back up to the Caribbean coast, finally ending in the village of Taganga. As you may or may not be aware, Mompox is a little off the beaten track and quite challenging to get to or away from. Our journey up to Taganga took 7 or 8 hours, involving a (stiflingly hot) minivan, ferry (which had recently capsized and tipped several lorries into the river), and local bus. We made it though!

Beautiful sunset in Taganga, taken from our hostel roof terrace

Taganga is the kind of place we might normally avoid: its draws include drugs, prostitutes, partying and hippies. It reminded us a lot of a backpacker beach destination in south-east Asia (Koh Tao, Sihanoukville). However, it also happens to be one of the cheapest places in the world to do diving courses, along with Koh Tao in Thailand. Kev is already qualified, having done his Open Water certification in Thailand and his Advanced in Indonesia, but I had never done any diving before. This seemed a great opportunity to give it a go and see why Kev loves it so much.

Okay? Okay - diving in Taganga

We had done some research prior to arriving in Taganga and already booked the diving with an instructor called Reto Müller, who is originally from Switzerland. Reto is a freelance instructor in Taganga and we liked all the reviews we read about him, particularly those mentioning him being good with nervous people (i.e. me!).  We met Reto at the roundabout in Taganga at sunset when we first arrived, along with a group of fellow divers and hangers-on. This was to become a theme - every day we'd go there to watch the (very pretty) sunset, meet people and discuss the day's adventures over a beer or two. The other theme was Café Bonsai, the best café in Taganga, in which Reto was a regular and reserved a table every lunchtime for all his friends and dive students. It was great to have these social activities each day and the chance to compare experiences with others. One day Reto even put on a BBQ for at least 10 people!

Argh, a shark!

My first experience of diving, the pool session, didn't go too well. I was in a group of 3 doing the Open Water course, along with Kev who was having a skills refresher in the pool too. I found the explanation of all the equipment too fast and a little overwhelming, and was slow to grasp the skills that the others seemed to be taking to like fish to water. It was stressful! The worst thing was the mask clearing, i.e. letting your mask fill with water and learning how to expel it. I found that when I had my nostrils in water, I kept trying to breathe through them... not the best idea, and it usually resulted in me panicking and coming to the surface coughing and spluttering. Reto in the end left me to sit on the bottom practising breathing and getting used to being underwater. This in fact helped quite a lot; by the end of the session I still couldn't clear my mask but at least felt much more comfortable and less panicky underwater.

A tiny fish hiding inside the coral

After this first experience I was quite disheartened and spent a long time dithering over whether to give up or give it another go. I was lucky in that Reto had offered to do the pool session again with me the next day, but this time it would be just me. While feeling that maybe diving was not for me, I was eventually convinced by Kev to make the most of this opportunity to have a go one to one with the instructor. And this time things went much better! I didn't panic, I completed all the skills, and even got quite good at clearing the mask. Reto seemed as pleased as me and said I was ready to start the open water (sea) stuff the next day. I was very grateful to him for giving me the extra time.

On the boat - diving properly! - with Reto (right)

Diving in the sea properly was a whole different experience to the swimming pool. In particular, I had to get used to trying to control my buoyancy. This isn't that difficult in the pool, but when you're down at depth and the pressure is changing, it's more challenging. Just inhaling or exhaling can have quite an effect! The first two dives, down to 12m, I spent mainly bobbing up and down like a yo-yo. On the second day in the sea, we went down to 18m. I had felt nervous about this, as 18m sounds pretty deep, but in fact it felt much the same as 12m. I couldn't believe we were that deep really! I was a little disturbed by the odd booming noise in my ears that would seem to get louder and louder and then vanish; eventually I realised this was just a boat going by overhead...

Lobsters

By the second day in open water, I was quite enjoying myself, while still screaming a little inside (being able to breathe 18m underwater still doesn't seem quite natural)! It was pretty amazing to be swimming along just above the sea floor, passing beautiful coral, fish and other marine life. Among the highlights were several lobsters and several seahorses, plus an eel and (I think) a nudibranch. While I'd seen seahorses before, snorkelling in the Galápagos, now I had time to stop and see them properly, rather than having to come to the surface for air after a few seconds. I was starting to appreciate the advantages of diving.

Coral and a fish (fish identification isn't my strong point yet!)

Kev spent the time in which I was learning to dive to do his Rescue Diver course, the next major PADI course after the Advanced. This seemed to consist mainly of him and his fellow students towing their (big) instructor around on the surface, as well as dragging / carrying him to shore and providing emergency oxygen. It looked exhausting! Kev also had to learn how to deal with panicked divers underwater, e.g. people attempting to swim rapidly to the surface, or flapping arms and legs wildly, or trying to grab his mask or regulator. While it was very physically demanding, Kev said he enjoyed the course overall and gained confidence in his ability to help others (and himself) underwater. And now I have a certified Rescue Diver to dive with!

Not sure what this is - possibly a nudibranch?

Having completed our diving courses, we wanted to spend a couple of days around Tayrona National Park, a coastal park where the beaches back onto tropical jungle. It's a large area reaching nearly as far as Taganga, and we had in fact already been diving at the edge of Tayrona (one of the options to get into the park properly from Taganga is by sea in a speedboat - 1.5 hours of bumping, Reto told us!). Diving in Tayrona is quite different to hiking though, and we wanted to experience more of the park on land.

Arrecifes Beach in Tayrona National Park, with jungle behind

There are several basic lodging options in the Tayrona Park itself, but instead we opted to stay just outside, at the Posada Seineken, a set of wooden cabins run by a friendly Colombian family. It was a good place to relax, with a lovely garden, hammocks everywhere and pets including a cat and two rabbits (I was happy)! While we were only 50m or so higher than Taganga, the climate here was quite different. Cloudier, with a few outbursts of torrential rain, and most importantly, noticeably cooler. This was a welcome change from the relentless heat and humidity of the past couple of weeks.

View of the sea through the jungle

We had a long day trip to Tayrona, the entrance to which was just 500m down the road from where we were staying, and had a great time. We hiked along well maintained paths through the jungle, with occasional glimpses of the stunningly blue Caribbean sea and gorgeous beaches. The park is very popular with Colombians and gets very crowded in high season; now is low season but it was still quite busy, especially at the beaches. We stopped at Cabo San Juan, probably the most famous beach, to have a dip in the sea and cool down from the hike.

Climbing the original steps built by the Tayrona people, in Pueblito

Another of Tayrona's highlights, other than the beaches and rainforest, is archaeological. A steep climb up a hill from Cabo San Juan takes you to Pueblito, the remains of a settlement occupied by the Tayrona culture between about 400-1500 C.E. It is mostly overgrown but you can still see terraces, platforms that were probably open air temples, and flights of stairs. The hike up here was crazy - the 'path' takes you up through a load of huge boulders, which you have to sort of scramble up, at times aided by a rope. An hour of this was quite tough! We were rewarded on the way when we saw a whole troupe of monkeys though, and Pueblito was well worth the effort too. Instead of returning to Cabo San Juan, we followed a different path and eventually came out on the main road, where we could catch a bus back to our starting point.

A large train of leafcutter ants

We are now in the colonial city of Santa Marta, adjacent to Taganga, spending a couple of days in a nicer hotel with air conditioning and a (very small) pool. Our plans include more diving and possibly a trek to Colombia's famous Lost City. But we will have to see, as Kev has injured his foot and I am ill once again due to some dodgy food...! Onwards and upwards.

The Lord of Sipán - The Richest Tomb in Peru

Our next stop having left Chachapoyas was the city of Chiclayo, on Peru's north coast. We took a nightbus here from Chachapoyas, arriving at the antisocial hour of 4 am. It seems that most nightbuses in the north of Peru leave at around 8pm, regardless of the number of hours to the destination, so we've arrived before dawn several times!

Chiclayo is not the most pleasant of cities - it's big, busy and polluted. However, there are several amazing archaeological sites in the area, plus one of Peru's best museums, and we spent most of our time exploring these attractions.

View from Purgatory Hill at Túcume, near Chiclayo

A short colectivo (shared taxi) ride from Chiclayo is the town of Lambayeque, which is home to the Museo Tumbas Reales de Sipán. This museum showcases an incredible collection of treasures that were found in the Royal Tombs of Sipán (dating to about CE 300), a few km away. The discovery of these tombs in 1987 and their subsequent excavation was hugely significant in archaeology. The main tomb of the 14 tombs discovered at Sipán belonged to a great lord of the Moche culture - in fact the most important person of all, equivalent to a king. And unlike most pre-Incan graves, his tomb had been left intact, undiscovered by gravediggers.

This Lord of Sipan was so important that he was buried with hordes of ceramics, gold and silver objects, armour, offerings, animals and even several other people as his 'attendants' into the afterlife - the warriors that were buried with him had had their feet amputated, probably to render them incapable of leaving. The finds from just this one tomb took up an entire floor at the museum, with case after case of unbelievable riches. There were also recreations of several of the tombs as they originally looked when first excavated. It was all really interesting: you can see why these tombs have helped archaeologists such a lot to shed more light on the people and practices of the Moche culture. Sadly we weren't allowed to take any photos.

Pyramids at Túcume

Also near Chiclayo, we visited another site called Túcume. This huge complex of pyramids, now crumbling and covered in mud and sand so they just look like giant mounds scattered across the landscape, was originally built by a different culture - the Sican people (approx CE 800-1350). It continued being used as an important regional centre by the Chimu and later the Incas. At the centre of the site is a hill known as Purgatory Hill, which we climbed to get a great view of the sheer scale of the area.  Purgatory Hill has a story behind its name. At the start of the Spanish occupation of this area, the Spanish lit fires atop this hill and claimed it was purgatory. In an attempt to scare the locals into converting to Catholicism they even dressed as devils and threw non-believing locals to their deaths.

Part of the Sechín site at Casma

We headed down from Chiclayo to Lima via the small town of Casma in order to visit yet another amazing set of ruins (Peru is full of them!) In this case, it was the ancient site of Sechín, dating from around BCE 1600. Most of it is a heap of rubble, but the main temple building has been restored to some extent, and the most interesting feature is the incredible bas relief carvings that decorate all the stone blocks of the building's outer wall. These original carvings represent all sorts of gruesome scenes of war and human sacrifice, including people being beheaded and eviscerated. Little is known about the Sechín people but it doesn't sound like they were the nicest of folks!

Gruesome bas relief carvings at Sechín - note beheaded heads!

We've spent the last couple of days in Lima. Today we went to see the San Francisco Monastery, which has a library dating back to the 16th century. I was in my element and wished I could have opened some of the thousands of ancient books there (sadly you are only allowed to gawp at them from a distance!) Our guide told us some of the larger books have pages of animal skin and covers of wood, and weigh over 20 kg. Wow!

Strange carving of two heads on top of one another, at Sechín

Tomorrow we're leaving to Peru and flying down to Santiago and then onto Patagonia, where with Kev's leg now 100% we will finally be hitting the Torres del Paine National Park that we missed on our previous visit. Can't wait!

The Third Highest Waterfall in the World

After leaving the mountains of Huaraz, we continued zigzagging north through Peru. This first took us to some ancient ruins near Trujillo on the coast then, back in the sierra, to Chachapoyas, with more ruins and the third highest waterfall in the world.

The foot of the Gocta Waterfall - note the tiny people!

We wanted to visit Trujillo as it is close to the UNESCO site of Chan Chan. This was the capital of the Chimu culture that was built around 850 CE. It consists of ten huge citadels, although only one has been restored enough to be worth visiting. As the culture lived by the sea, the walls are covered in designs of fishing nets, fish and sea birds.

Fishing net decorations on the walls at Chan Chan

The highlight of the area around Trujillo was some other, earlier, ruins from the Moche culture (approx CE 100 - 800). Now called the Temples of the Sun and Moon, they are two massive pyramids that are still being excavated. Only the Moon temple can be visited, and the excavations have revealed, amazingly, still intact wall paintings.

Painted walls at the Huaca de la Luna

Continuing on to Chachapoyas, we climbed back up into the mountains to see some more ruins - those at Kuelap. This is an enormous fortress that, like Machu Picchu, is on top of a mountain, giving it fantastic views of the surrounding area. It's the largest pre-Colombian structure in the Americas, with huge outer walls 20m high. The construction was begun in 600 CE by the Chachapoyas culture, and was later occupied by the Inca. It's a fascinating site, and many of the remains are still covered by cloud forest. In fact, Chachapoyas is a Quechua word meaning 'cloud forest'.

Trees covering the ruins at Kuelap

Also close to Chachapoyas are a series of incredibly tall waterfalls. We visited the one at Gocta, which is claimed to be the third highest in the world at 771m. It's an astounding sight seeing it from a the nearby village, then getting closer and seeing the water turn into mist as it falls.

On the way to the Gocta waterfall

We're now heading back south towards Lima, breaking up the journey by visiting some more ruins along the coast.

Trekking Again: Peru's Stunning Cordillera Blanca (And Falling Into a Cactus)

We've spent the past few days in and around Huaraz, a pleasant city in the northern highlands. Huaraz is surrounded by some spectacular scenery in the Cordillera Blanca and Cordillera Huayhuash mountain ranges, and is fast becoming known as the trekking and adventure capital of Peru. You can see several beautiful snowcapped mountains just from the city centre, with the skyline dominated by the majestic Huascarán, the highest in Peru at 6768m. Ready for some more hiking after a break since our long Machu Picchu trek, we were excited to explore the region.

Trekking in the Cordillera Blanca - Santa Cruz Trek, Day 4

The city of Huaraz is up at 3100m, and having had a while down at sea level we needed a couple of days to re-acclimatise to the altitude. Our main objective here was to undertake the famous 4 day Santa Cruz hike in the Cordillera Blanca, voted as one of the world's best treks by National Geographic, and we spent our first day in Huaraz looking round all the local trekking agencies. In fact this hike can be done independently, but we didn't fancy carrying all our own gear (including tents and cooking equipment) around, especially at altitudes of well above 4000m. We decided to sign up for an organised trek with a small company called Eco Ice, departing in two days' time.

Following the river at the start of our Laguna 69 trek

Having got that sorted, we needed to do a day hike to acclimatise further prior to the longer trek. We chose the trek to Laguna 69 (inventive name!), which came highly recommended by several other travellers. The hike started at around 3800m and proceeded across mostly flat terrain, following the river and passing numerous gorgeous waterfalls. After some fairly easy switchbacks, we reached not Laguna 69 but its sister lake, Laguna 68, and from there it was a lot tougher going. Kev was okay with the altitude but I was gasping for breath and had to slow to a snail's pace for the last section! However as we crested the summit and got our first view of Laguna 69, it was all worth it. The most dazzlingly turquoise lake you can imagine, ringed by snowy mountains and glaciers (that from time to time would creak loudly!). The weather had been very changeable on the way up but as we arrived it cleared nicely and we had a wonderful view of the tops of the mountains emerging from the clouds.

Laguna 69

Laguna 69 is hard to do without taking organised transport, and while this was fine on the way it was a little frustrating on the way back. We were some of the fastest people in our busload of people; in fact having got to the top and spent an hour there eating lunch, on our way down we passed the majority of the group still going up! So it was quite a long wait for everyone to finish before our bus could depart for the long 3 hour trip back to Huaraz.

View down the valley at the end of our Laguna 69 trek

On our return from this hike, we found an email from Eco Ice advising us that our Santa Cruz trek had been postponed for two days due to the illness of someone else who'd signed up for it. We were actually not too sad about the delay - it was pretty good not have to get up before dawn again for the second day in a row, and I was grateful for some more acclimatisation time. Rather than hanging about any further in Huaraz, we decided to switch our plans around and visit the nearby historical site of Chavín de Huantar before the trek.

The main plaza at Chavín, with temple behind, surrounded by mountains

We took a very rural local bus out to Chavín, opting to stay a night in the town itself rather than do a day tour from Huaraz (which would have been another 6 hours round trip!). The road wound up into the mountains and then through a tunnel into the neighbouring district of Chavín, where the road surface changed dramatically for the worse: an hour of bumping along, often next to a sickening drop, with feathers blowing in the windows from the dozens of crates of chickens on the roof. Arriving in Chavín town itself in the late afternoon, we checked out what Lonely Planet describes as 'thermal baths'. Expecting some nice hot springs, we were a little disappointed to find they really were 'baths' - several private cubicles with bath size holes in the floor, which we had to fill with a hot tap to a maximum depth of about 8 inches. Not quite what we'd hoped for.

Snake carvings on the steps at Chavín

But our main reason for coming to Chavín was to see the ruins near the town, which make up yet another UNESCO World Heritage Site. This site was built by the Chavín culture between 1200 and 500 BC, and used as a ceremonial centre where local people would come together to worship. The main temple was a huge pyramid, with a sunken plaza in front and stone columns still with original carvings. The whole complex had a ventilation system, earthquake proofing and even a system of channels that would have acted as a sound system, amplifying sounds during ceremonies. Perhaps the most impressive feature was the elaborate series of underground passages, or galleries - some have unbelievably high ceilings and you can still walk though them today. One passage has at its centre a huge carved stone monolith of the Chavin supreme deity, the Lanzón: most of the gallery was dark but the lighting was cleverly designed by the temple's builders so that light from outside beams directly on the sculpture. It was pretty incredible.

Underground gallery at Chavín

The monolith representing the Lanzón deity

We returned that afternoon to Huaraz and the next day were up at 5am to start our Santa Cruz trek. Like Laguna 69, this trek goes through the Huascarán National Park in the Cordillera Blanca. The trek was amazing, with scenery reminiscent of Patagonia. The Cordillera Blanca has 33 peaks over 5500m and over 700 glaciers - there were magnificent snowy panoramas everywhere we looked.  We even saw Paramount Mountain; yes, the one in the Paramount Pictures logo! While easier than our ridiculous Machu Picchu trek, it was still challenging at times, particularly with the altitude. Day 2 took us up to a 4750m pass, the highest I have ever hiked to, and that day we camped at 4250m. Two sleeping bags still weren't enough to quite keep out the bitter cold; it's the highest we've slept at on the whole trip and the first time we've had ice inside the tent! We were lucky with the weather though, with clear skies most of the time allowing us stupendous views at both of the highest points.

Looking out on the Paramount Mountain

We were in a group of eight, all lovely people - an Aussie couple, two Israeli brothers, and an Aussie girl and Canadian girl travelling together - plus two guides, a donkey driver and several donkeys. And a dog, which ostensibly belonged to the donkey driver but was nameless and spent most of his time trekking with us. In fact he became rather overprotective, one night waking everyone up barking wildly and attempting to chase away nearby cows.

Kev with 'El Perro' ('The Dog') - we gave him a name!

On the last day of the trek we had a fairly easy walk downhill, next to a lovely river with so many waterfalls that we beat our record number in a day. Kev managed to fall over spectacularly on top of a cactus - the guide got to practise his first aid skills bandaging his hand and later extracting a cactus spine at least an inch long! We celebrated the end of the trek with beers at a shop in the tiny village at the end that was actually run by our guide's aunt and uncle.

One of numerous waterfalls along the river on day 4

That evening we were all also invited to the house of Orlando, the owner of the company, for delicious homecooked dinner and pisco sours, with a demonstration of the making of the latter. Orlando invited us on to the birthday party of one of his colleagues and we had a great evening drinking, chatting and watching the (somewhat odd) Peruvian style of dancing. We'd definitely recommend the Eco Ice company to anybody!

Our final campsite at Llamacorral 

There's plenty more to do here, and in fact we'd like to come back here on holiday in the future to do the challenging and perhaps even more impressive 10 - 12 day Huayhuash circuit in the other cordillera. But for now we're pushing on up north before we fly back down to Patagonia in 2 weeks' time to meet family and do yet more hiking!

Our trekking group at Punta Unión, the high pass on day 2 - new height record!

The Oldest Civilisation in the Americas

We've spent the last few days getting to know a bit more of Peru's history, from the oldest civilisation in the Americas to the turbulent recent past.

Ayacucho

From Ica, we set off for the less-visited city of Ayacucho, back up in the mountains. Ayacucho was the main base for the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) communist organisation. Starting in the early 80s, it waged a guerilla war against the military government that, predictably, responded with violence. This left much of the populace caught between the two sides with thousands of casualties, the majority poor people from the countryside. Sendero Luminoso declined in activity from 1992 when its leader was captured, but there are still sporadic bursts of activity.

The remains of the powerful Wari empire

We used Ayacucho as a base to visit the ruins of the Wari civilisation's capital city. This was a city of an estimated 50,000 people and was the centre of a pre-Inca empire extending over much of Peru between the years 500 and 900. There isn't much left of it today; although there are some remaining buildings and walls still standing, it's hard to imagine a city that big in the abandoned cactus-covered desert.

The main square in Lima

After Ayacucho, we took another night bus back down to the coast for a brief stay in Lima. We're planning to return here in about a month, so we just visited the main sites - the park filled with stray cats in Miraflores (which Jo loved), and a walk around the historic colonial-era centre. It felt a bit depressing as Lima is famous for being covered in white mist for half of the year. We cheered ourselves up by finding one of the first places in which pisco sours were made.

5,000 year old pyramids at Caral

We left Lima to travel further north along the coast to Barranca, the closest town to the ancient ruins of Caral. This is an astounding site - it dates from 5,000 years ago so is one of the cradles of civilisation. It's the oldest such site in the Americas, and was founded at the same time as the Egyptian pyramids were being built. There are remains of pyramids and residential buildings centred around a large square that are in amazing condition considering their age.

Being gluttons for punishment, we've now returned to the mountains, where we're hoping to do some more trekking from Huaraz.

The Nazca Lines - One Of The World's Great Unsolved Mysteries

We arrived in the desert city of Nazca with one intention - to see the famous Nazca Lines. These are a complex series of ancient lines, geometric shapes and stylised motifs, all drawn in the desert and encompassing a huge area. The figures include several designs based on animals and plants, including for example a monkey, a hummingbird and a spider. They are on such a large scale that they can only really be appreciated from the air  - most of the animals are 50-100m long, while the lines are often several km long and 1-3m wide.

The hummingbird figure

The Nazca Lines were created by the Nazca culture and its predecessor, the Paracas culture, between around 500 BC and 500 AD. It would have been a huge undertaking. All the figures and lines were made by clearing away the top layer of dark pebbles and revealing the whiter ground underneath. The lines are so straight that they must have been painstakingly planned and measured - some even theorise that the Nazca must have had hot air balloons to be able to create such precise designs that only become clear from the air. Despite being so old, the geoglyphs have remained in good condition due to the extreme aridity of the desert environment.

Our tiny plane for the Nazca Lines flight

Kev had always wanted to take the flight over the lines, but I was less sure and was very nearly put off by the horror stories of poor safety, horrific air sickness and general very bad organisation! At the last minute I decided to go for it, and was very glad I did. The flight was simply incredible: one of the top experiences of the trip so far. We were in a 6 seater plane with another couple plus pilot and co-pilot. The pilot flew round 12 of the most famous figures, banking first left and then right so that people on both sides of the plane could see. We had amazingly clear views of every figure and could better understand their layout and the sheer immensity of the lines. And no air sickness!

A pair of hands - also sometimes known as the frog

While various theories have been propounded, the purpose of the lines remains unknown. Most experts agree that they probably had some religious significance, perhaps intended as symbols to be seen by the gods above: archaeological evidence shows that ceremonies and festivals may have taken place along them. Other theories link the lines to astronomy and some suggest that they were used as some sort of huge celestial calendar. They could also have been paths leading to water sources - vital when living in such a dry environment. One of the world's enduring mysteries.

In the Cantalloc aqueducts

While in Nazca we explored some ruins from the Nazca civilisation. Firstly the Cantalloc aqueducts, a sophisticated system of subterranean water channels that the Nazca designed for irrigating their crops. They look like interconnected terraces, spiralling down to wells at the bottom, and are still used today. Next the slightly gruesome Chauchilla Cemetery, a burial site from the later Nazca period, still containing mummified human remains in open graves. Interestingly, many of the mummies had headdresses or very long hair styled like dreadlocks. We also visited Cahuachi, the remains of an important ceremonial centre and pilgrimage destination for the Nazca. The ruins here were in excellent condition despite being built of mud bricks, again thanks to the extreme conditions here.

Nazca mummies in the Chauchilla Cemetery 

From Nazca we moved on to the small coastal town of Paracas. We had a long walk around the desert peninsula, admiring the beautiful marine scenery and seeing more flamingoes than anywhere else we've been. The next day we took a boat trip out to the nearby Islas Ballestas, 'the poor man's Galapagos', as many descriptions put it. The wildlife here was stunning - the sky became thick with birds as we approached, and the islands themselves are simply covered in colonies of cormorants, Peruvian boobies and Inca terns, among others. They're also home to Humboldt penguins, sea lions and pelicans and we saw all of these at close proximity. Not the Galapagos, but a pretty good alternative for now!

Playa Roja (Red Beach) - part of the Paracas peninsula 

While in Paracas we happened to be discussing what would happen if a tsunami hit .. and lo and behold the next day after the earthquake in Chile there were tsunami warnings throughout coastal Peru. Fortunately we'd moved on by then 60 km inland to the desert town of Ica, where we enjoyed some wine tasting. Yes, Peru's major wine region is in the desert! There's no comparison with Chilean wine, but the 2012 Petit Verdot was surprisingly good actually. We also visited Ica's excellent museum, and will leave here tonight heading for Ayacucho, up in the central highlands.

So many birds! Peruvian boobies at the Islas Ballestas