Through the desert to the Andean Volcanoes…

Hola chicos y chicas, this is Radio Miky sending again, this time with a life report from Arequipa and a report of the last few days. To characterize what’s coming up in short: seabird sanctuary, desert and Pacific Ocean, mountains, volcanoes, earthquakes and a Easter procession in Arequipa.

Welcome on this channel, we are happy if you read on … 🙂

Wake up at 3 o’clock – no, not in the afternoon, in the morning. Our bus pickup was due for 4 AM to bring is in time to Islas Ballestas, a said-to-be paradise for seabirds…. and after some 4 hrs of bus ride we made it really just in time to get to the boat.

Apropos bus ride: we (that is Babsi, Marlon and I) realised, how good it is to have a friend like Peter who works with a incoming travel agency here. All these days we were accompanied by Melissa, a nice, english speaking Quebecoise (I think she likes to have mentioned this) as a tour guide and she never became tired of explaining everything to us – really very kind. And the bus! It was definitely a bus for some 12 or 15 people and the four of us had it just for us alone for the next few days. En espanol: que lujo (what a luxury)!!!

Well, as I said, we made it just in time to the boat in Paracas, which is a small spot in the middle of nowhere, having just this one tourist hotel and from there was our boat. Due to some misunderstanding we had to wait for a bit but could then enter the boat for the half hour ride to the „Islas Ballestas“. Formerly they were used to harvest Guano, the biological basic component of fertilizer, but with artificial fertilizers coming up, they lost their role somehow. Today they are a nature preserve area with millions and millions of seabirds on the rocks, in the water and in the air, stretching for kilometers in flight. And there are also hundreds of sea lions around, breeding and feeding their youngsters here. Exactly those youngsters were swimming around our boat quite curious what this funny thing could be?

Later on our tour took us for hours through the ever changing desert. And what a desert: rocks, sand, stones, … nearly nothing green, except some small strips along the road where the land is irrigated. But apart from that: totally dry and this just next the coast of the Pacific Ocean. One would not believe it if not seeing it personally!

Hours later, at around 3 PM we finally arrived in Nasca, the place famous for its huge drawings in the desert. For the next day there was a flight planned over those „Nasca lines“, but thanks to Meli, our lovely tourguide, we could rearrange the flight for the same day. 10 minutes after arrival in Nasca we were airborn and the small Cessna took us to all the major lines. The pilot always counted us in, saying: „next figure first on the right, in 10 seconds, 9…8…7…“ Then a wide turn to the right and there at the wingtip you could see the figures. After that the same procedure to the left, for the passengers sitting on the other side. Though we were lucky with weather and winds, the flight was kind of bumpy. Interestingly enough, the figures were not that big as one might imagine from various photos. (well, at least they didn’t look too big from the air). Without the help of the pilot, we probably would not have identified them at all. Still, if you think that they are hundreds of meters long, its amazing that the indians here could do such things.

After a refreshing bath in the hotel pool, the evening then was devoted to a dinner show, with quite some good food (the variety here in Peru is extraordinary!), two or three songs played by what seems to be one of the more well-known Peruvian combos and two local dances.

The following day was again 11 hours in the bus through the desert, partly inside the country, partly at the coast road – and remember, this is the „Pan-American Highway“ from Alaska to the south tip of Argentina! The longest stop we did was at a small village in the midst of nowhere, where we had the probably most expensive lunch so far 🙂 – tourism is a very good business sometimes 😉

The next highlight then (and I mean it) was Arequipa, the second largest city in the country, at the foot of three different volcanoes. At least one of them is not active any more for sure. For the rest people tell different stories. While Marlon and Babsi went to sleep (Babsi had an awful cold) I joined Meli for a nightly walk into the city. Great impressions with all the lights and the people on the street, particularly since it was the Easter weekend! There was a huge crowd of people queueing up for entrance into the cathedral! We finished the evening with the best chocolate fondue in one of Arequipas finest cafés – and remember, it was the Peruvians (some say, the Inkas) who introduced chocolate to the world! After returning to the hotel it was time to say goodbye to Meli, since she returned to Lima and we were entrusted to some other guides.

Marlon, Babsi and I had the following day „off“, without any programme, so we could freely walk around town. So we used the opportunity to get enough sleep and have a late breakfast. In the midst of the breakfast we suddenly heard a rumbling noise, soon followed by the earth shaking and the kitchen crew coming out of the kitchen, telling us :“tranquillo, tranquillo, don’t worry“. The whole situation seemed so bizare, us sitting there with a cup of coffee in our hands, the staff telling us „oh, that’s very normal, don’t worry, it’s just a small shaking, just a tremour“ and again us not knowing what we should think about it. Actually though the earth was shaking we just calmly looked to the walls if we could see something crack and kept sitting and only became a bit nervous when the hotel staff came running from the kitchen. But then, they explained the „earthquake“ to us with such a smile on their faces we couldn’t help to understand it wasn’t serious. Interestingly enough there was a second quake soon afterwards, when we were just getting ready to walk out into town. Only the next day we learned two things:

• the „earthquakes“ had a strength about 4.3 to 4.9
• Real „Earthquakes“ start only about 6.0 or stronger – everything below that is just a tremour.

As for me so far I have only experienced three tremours then, number 2 and 3 being on the same day 😉 And the rest of the day, which we spent walking around, visiting churches and yards of nice houses, at least I was in my mind waiting for the next tremour(s) which then did not come anymore.

Of course you get hungry with time and so we had lunch at one of the many restaurants at the balconies around the „Plaza de Armas“ – and we were lucky! Not only was the food again very fine, but we could also pay a visit to the rooftop terrace (under construction) to take some photos from there. And since there weren’t any fences or other limitations between the house of „our“ restaurant and the others, we could freely walk around the roofs of all the houses at this side of the place (which we did of course)! A pity I can’t upload pictures here, again no USB port available at the PC.