A Week in Peru

After crossing the border from Ecuador into Peru at 3 in the morning I headed to the small surf town of Mancora. I stayed at an amazing "resort hostel" where the balcony if my room overlooked a beautiful beach with a nice left point break. 

After spending two days in Mancora recharging the batteries, I headed down the coast to Lima. The capital city sits on cliffs overlooking the ocean but it is over crowded and always grey this time of year so I old decided to stay for 1 night. 

I then joined a backpacker tour called Peru Hop that takes travelers in a U shape from Lima to Cusco, with stops in Paracas, Huacachina, Nazca and Arequipa. It's a nice change up from taking local buses as everyone speaks english and stays in the same hostels. 

Paracas is a desert national reserve that is home to Islas Ballestas and has great views of desert blending into ocean. 

We then went to Huacachina, an oasis surrounded by mountainous sand dunes in the middle of the desert. On the first day we hiked up the dune behind our hostel for an amazing sunset. On day two we rented dune buggies and snow/sand boards and surfed down the dunes in the middle of nowhere. 

On the way to Arequipa the bus stopped off on the side of the road in Nazca for us to climb the lookout tower to see the Nazca lines, ancient figures and animals carved into the earth. 

The next morning we arrived in Arequipa and spent the day exploring the towns historical sights and the best central market that I have been to in South America. Then at 3 the next morning we took a bus out to the worlds second deepest canyon, Canon del Colca at 3191 meters. The canyons main draw, apart from it size, is the giant Condors that ride the the early morning thermals out of the canyon. It is an amazing sight to see birds that weigh 13 kg and have a wing span of 3 meters flyin out of the huge canyon without even one flap of their wings. In the afternoon we went to some natural hot spring that were literaly coming out of the river. 

Early yesterday morning we took the bus to Cusco and I have been exploring the city for the past day and a half before I leave for Machu Picchu via the Salkantay trek tomorrow morning.