I have sand in my hair and Latin music in my ears, which makes it somewhat difficult for a European like me to feel "christmassy". Got a little nostalgic earlier today though when thinking of home and my family gathering around the Christmas tree... but hey, you don't see half of Peru carrying around Panettone cakes everyday either.
Diana and I have started the spontaneous part of our trip and made it to Arequipa in the meantime, a beautiful old colonial city set against the impressive backdrop of the Andes. Wish I could share some pictures with you but seem to have forgotten my download cable, so photos will follow in January!
Our last day in Lima with Claudia and Ramón was fantastic, even though overshadowed a bit by the news reaching us the following morning: Air Comet, the airline I was supposed to fly back to BCN with, had gone bankrupt and shut down all their customer care so I had to start a rescue flight booking action of my own. Sounds more dramatic than it actually was, but I still had to race from website to website as prices kept increasing by the minute and I ended up paying way more than my travel budget allowed. Nonetheless, after this unpleasant incident Diana and I went back to enjoying our trip and caught a bus down to Ica, 6 hours south of Lima. We went on to Huacachina, a cute little oasis in the desert just outside of Ica, and spent the night there.
Yesterday, we got ready for some early morning desert fun - a buggy ride in the dunes and sandboarding. Both extremely cool, and we were lucky enough to still enjoy the dunes in the fresh morning air. After breakfast, we headed on southwards to Nasca and randomly shared a colectivo cab with Shannon and Quinton from Salt Lake City, the first link in a random chain. Later links included a flight over the mysterious Nasca lines in the desert around the city, good seafood lunch, a visit to a cemetery in the desert with mummies all over the place, an Inca pottery workshop, a goldsmith, a stroll through the Christmasly congested streets of Nasca with the same jingles playing over and over, a long wait at the bus station watching TV and observing Peruvian Christmas bus travel craziness (becaue everyone wants to see their families), and a comfy overnight bus ride to Arequipa. And here we are now, having explored the impressive convent of Santa Catalina, the Plaza de Armas (equivalent to the Mexican zócalos), some churches and the inner city - and having booked a day trip to the Colca Canyon, one of the biggest canyons in the world. Departure time 3 a.m. tomorrow morning... ouch. Anyway, to celebrate this Christmas evening we'll have dinner at a nice restaurant and call it an early night then to be ready for the canyon and the flight of the condors tomorrow!
FELIZ NAVIDAD!!!
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