Lucie & Rhys´s Honeymoon Adventure: Week 20 - Arequipa, Huacachina, Paracas, Lima (Peru)

We arrived in Arequipa at 6am and grabbed a cab to the hostel we had booked only to be told we couldn’t check in until 11:30am. We curled up in the communal area to watch Sons of Anarchy on our laptop and wait. Once checked in we headed in to town to explore and to search for a Spanish school. Arequipa, although still beautiful, didn’t live up to Cusco. It’s very busy and they love using their car horns. After checking a couple of places and realising we really needed to start a course on a Monday we gave up (we’ll try to find somewhere further up the coast). Rhys headed off to find Burger King for lunch and I sat on a little terrace in a café on a pedestrianised street and met him back at the hostel later. That afternoon I headed out to visit the Jesuit Inglesa de la Compania, a church with an incredibly ornate façade and with a chapel covered in murals of tropical flowers, fruits and birds. Back in the main Plaza I stopped for coffee and cake before heading back to the hostel to find Rhys. For dinner we headed back to the cobble stone pedestrianised street behind the cathedral for tacos and mojitos.

The next day we walked to the Monasterio Santa Catalina, a convent occupying a whole block of the town surrounded by high walls. Founded in 1580, 30 nuns still live there but a large area of the complex has been opened to the public. Lonely Planet calls it ‘meditatively mazelike’ and you can’t help but agree. With it’s winding streets and bright blue and terracotta walls and red geraniums and orange trees it really is a peaceful haven. After a coffee in one of the courtyards we headed back to the hostel before our night bus to Ica.

We arrived into Ica on time and caught a cab straight out to the oasis town of Huacachina a couple of kilometres west. The whole village comprises of a small lake and about two streets but the draw is the huge sand dunes that surround it. After checking in and chilling at a bar with a pool we booked a sand dune trip for that afternoon. We climbed onto and strapped into a dune buggy and headed into the dunes for a rollercoaster ride. The buggy dropped us off at a couple of spots and dished out sand boards and we spent the next hour or so shooting down the dunes either lying or standing on our boards without anyone in our group getting any more serious an injury than a bit of sand burn. That night we ate BBQ and played dice with a couple of people from our trip.

Since Huacachina was pretty quiet and after sand boarding there wasn’t too much to do we decided to head further north to Paracas, 4 hours away. After check in and a quick exploration of the tiny town, Rhys recruited two of the other people from our dorm and we headed to the sea front for dinner and on to a bar with live music for cocktails.

When we woke we were escorted to the dock and on to a boat for a trip out to Islas Ballestas, nicknamed the ‘poor mans Galapagos’. After a brief photo stop at the ‘Candelabra’ – a giant etching in the hills, the boat continued and we spent about an hour cruising around the islands arches and caves, watching the noisy sea lions and the thousands of birds, mostly pelicans, cormorants and boobies (although we were a little disappointed by the lack of blue feet). After heading back into shore, and spending half an hour queuing for our boat to dock, we went back to bed for a quick nap to sleep off the previous nights cocktails before the afternoon tour of the national park. The park was a big desert filled reserve and other than a stop to look at shell fossils, it wasn’t really worth the visit. We stopped at a few view points and an incredibly busy cove and a supposedly red beach.

The next day we were on the move again and headed up the coast to Lima. Although we’d hoped not to have to stop there the bus times meant it was easier to spend a night. We checked into a quiet hostel in Barranco, a bohemian district to the north with lots of colonial houses and restaurants and bars. By the time we got there it was late afternoon so we headed out to an amazing sandwich shop where we caught the end of the football on TV. On the way back to our hostel we stopped at Starbucks for some home comforts - frappuccinos and muffins.

Our bus out of Lima was at 11am. The only scary bus ride we’ve had since we’ve been away. On leaving Lima on the freeway the driver had to slam on the brakes when we came across about 60 sandbags sprawled across the road and 4 police man trying to shift them. Another truck didn’t manage to stop in time and went straight over them causing the police man to jump out of the way, the truck pulled up a hundred metres further down the road with smoke coming out of it, we carried on. Then we turned off the freeway and started the winding road up into the mountains. It had rained and there had been a lot of landslides with rocks lying all over the road so we had to keep weaving into the incoming traffic lane on blind bends to avoid them, veering too close to the steep drop for our liking. Then there was a tree in the road that we had to stop for and call in so they’d come and clear it away. We stupidly booked the front seats on the top deck thinking we’d enjoy the view but seems being able to see what was happening made it all the worse. Arriving into Huaraz was a relief more than anything. It was late at night so we hailed a cab and checked in to our hotel.