So Peru has been amazing so far. Lydia and I met up with Kopetski last week and spent a few days with him before he started Spanish lessons. We stayed at a beautiful oasis in the middle of the desert and went dune buggying around in some sketchy buggies with sketchy divers. They had to stop every 10 minutes to top up the radiator fluid. It was a ton of fun. We Did some sandboarding, very similar to snowboarding down the dunes. They spread motor grease on the bottom to really make you go fast. It is rather hard to carve in the sand though, i preferred going on my stomach. I wore the colour off my dark blue shorts as they were touching the sand while I rode, a bit more friction than snow. After the oasis in Huacachina, we headed back down south for a flight over the Nazca Lines, some ancient, pre-Incan geoglyphs in the desert pampas. We saw figures of birds, animals, hands, trees, and other geometrical shapes. Apparently they were for harvesting calenders, but lots of mysteries remain around their existance due to the huge sizes of them. So after a nauseating cesna flight, which I co-piloted for 10 minutes or so, we had some coca tea to get rid of the nausea, then set out for Pisco, 4 hours by bus.
In Pisco we strolled around the huge outdoor markets, and spend a couple nights sitting in the town square people watching, and sipping cervecas on balconies overlooking the markets. We took a day to check out the National Reserve and did a hike recommended by the Lonely Planet through the reserve. It turned out to be a 9km walk, one-way, on broken pavement, through a baren desert in the hot hot sun, with absolutely nothing to see, but a vulture circling above us. Luckily we got a ride for the last few km, and hung out with some local people our age. We went to the most beautiful beach, a secluded beach, surrounded by sandy cliffs and rocks, with white sand, greeny blue waters, and sunshine, where we swam in our undies. Then we watched the pelicans fish in the fishing village and drank cervecas by the sea for the afternoon, turned out to be a lovely day, not at all what we expected.
After Pisco, Kopetski left for Arequipa and Lyd and I pressed on to Lima. We only spend 1 night in Lima, did some shopping, went to a movie in English, and picked up Danielle and her sister Katie. So we are now in Huanchaco, a little surfing town just out of Trajillo, camping for a few nights, and wondering what happened to the Brissards, as we were supposed to meet 5 hours ago here. We may have to send out the search party soon.