I know it's from New Zealand but Ronan's bungy was awesome....
Check it out...
Then check out my one!!
Then check out Joe's one!!!
Updates for the blog are coming... I promise!!
Charlie
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Monday, November 3, 2008
Day 50 > Buses and William
Today was our last day in Lima and we left Loki at about 12 o´clock. Loki has a check out time of 1:00pm so Ronan´s mission to have late check outs seems to alive in Peru!
We said goodbye to all at Loki, to McDonalds, KFC, Burger King and Miraflores and got in a taxi to the bus office. In Peru there are no bus stations so each bus company has their own terminal. The company we were using was Cruise del Sur because they had the best safety record in Peru. Micheal, the consulate in Lima, spent a while warning me of the dangers of bus travel in Peru. He heard a story where a bus was stopped by three 4x4´s in the middle of the night. A gang of men with guns got on the bus and took everyone´s money and valuables while another group of men took all the bags from the hold. Scary stuff, so you can see why we decided to go with Cruise del Sur.
When you get to the bus terminal you can see why they have such a safety record. We got all of our bus tickets from Lima to Ica, Ica to Nasca and Nasca to Cusco in a couple of minutes. Prior to boarding the bus we got swiped by metal detectors. Every bag was checked with a scanner and then a security guard went through your bag to make sure there was nothing dangerous in there.
Finally your videotaped! It was worse than airport security. I didn´t know who the hell this guy was taking video of everyone. At first I thought he was just holding the camera for someone. Then he started taking a video of me, sticking the camera in my face as I was handing in my ticket and passport. We eventually got to our seats and then the same guy arrived on the bus again, with his camera taking more video of everyone! You could really see how these guys got their high safety record.
The trip to Ica took just over 4 hours. The streets were teeming with people as we pulled into the bus terminal. Ricshaws and taxis tried to crawl through the crowds of people. As we left the terminal the security guard on the outside door pointed to a lone taxi man who we agreed a great price of 5 soles to Huacachina. Turned out this was no ordinary taxi, this man was a tourist office! The journey from the bus terminal to Huacachina took about 15 minutes but in that time we had learned all about the tours that William had on offer. He also had a book of recommendations from people from all over the world!
We finally got to the hostel that we had decided we were going to stay in. However, William asked us if we wanted to stay in another one up the street. He said it was a lot cleaner, more comfortable and all for the same price. He was 100% right! The Lonely Planet didn´t recommend the place at all but a lot of work had been done since that was written. The hostel was excellent and we even had a pool right outside our door. We agreed to do the sandboarding and wine tasting with William the next day and started to explore Huacachina for something to eat.
We ate dinner in a restaurant on the oasis and filled ourselves with huge pizzas. We walked around the town for a while after but it was a quite Sunday night so we headed back to the hostel for the night, dreaming of all the sand boarding we´d be doing tomorrow!
Charlie
We said goodbye to all at Loki, to McDonalds, KFC, Burger King and Miraflores and got in a taxi to the bus office. In Peru there are no bus stations so each bus company has their own terminal. The company we were using was Cruise del Sur because they had the best safety record in Peru. Micheal, the consulate in Lima, spent a while warning me of the dangers of bus travel in Peru. He heard a story where a bus was stopped by three 4x4´s in the middle of the night. A gang of men with guns got on the bus and took everyone´s money and valuables while another group of men took all the bags from the hold. Scary stuff, so you can see why we decided to go with Cruise del Sur.
When you get to the bus terminal you can see why they have such a safety record. We got all of our bus tickets from Lima to Ica, Ica to Nasca and Nasca to Cusco in a couple of minutes. Prior to boarding the bus we got swiped by metal detectors. Every bag was checked with a scanner and then a security guard went through your bag to make sure there was nothing dangerous in there.
Finally your videotaped! It was worse than airport security. I didn´t know who the hell this guy was taking video of everyone. At first I thought he was just holding the camera for someone. Then he started taking a video of me, sticking the camera in my face as I was handing in my ticket and passport. We eventually got to our seats and then the same guy arrived on the bus again, with his camera taking more video of everyone! You could really see how these guys got their high safety record.
The trip to Ica took just over 4 hours. The streets were teeming with people as we pulled into the bus terminal. Ricshaws and taxis tried to crawl through the crowds of people. As we left the terminal the security guard on the outside door pointed to a lone taxi man who we agreed a great price of 5 soles to Huacachina. Turned out this was no ordinary taxi, this man was a tourist office! The journey from the bus terminal to Huacachina took about 15 minutes but in that time we had learned all about the tours that William had on offer. He also had a book of recommendations from people from all over the world!
We finally got to the hostel that we had decided we were going to stay in. However, William asked us if we wanted to stay in another one up the street. He said it was a lot cleaner, more comfortable and all for the same price. He was 100% right! The Lonely Planet didn´t recommend the place at all but a lot of work had been done since that was written. The hostel was excellent and we even had a pool right outside our door. We agreed to do the sandboarding and wine tasting with William the next day and started to explore Huacachina for something to eat.
We ate dinner in a restaurant on the oasis and filled ourselves with huge pizzas. We walked around the town for a while after but it was a quite Sunday night so we headed back to the hostel for the night, dreaming of all the sand boarding we´d be doing tomorrow!
Charlie
Day 49 > Last night in Lima
Again, we spent the day in Lima walking around and taking in the sights. We organised the bus times for our buses to Ica and Nasca and spent another day chilling in the Tv room and on the internet.
That night we had dinner in the hostel and we headed out to the same nightclub that we went to when we first got to Lima. To our surprise it was all pretty much the same locals in the club again with no gringos to be seen anywhere...
We´d another great night out and headed back to the hostel really impressed with the nightlife in Lima and how friendly everyone was...
Charlie
That night we had dinner in the hostel and we headed out to the same nightclub that we went to when we first got to Lima. To our surprise it was all pretty much the same locals in the club again with no gringos to be seen anywhere...
We´d another great night out and headed back to the hostel really impressed with the nightlife in Lima and how friendly everyone was...
Charlie
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