Cusco was another clean, touristy, modern city, and we loved it! It had interesting, narrow cobbled streets lined with artisanal coffee shops, restaurants, and boutiques, was very walkable, and was the original capital of the Incan empire so has numerous, impressive, well-preserved (despite the best efforts of the Spanish to destroy them all!) Incan temples dotted around the city to explore. 

After battling through the narrow, busy streets in Pedro, and climbing up a winding, steep road, we reached our camp site towering above the city, near the Saqsaywaman temple (pronounced sexy woman!). It was a big green space full of other lovely overlanders, and had everything we needed - hot showers, toilet, wifi, laundry service etc. and was still only a 20-minute walk back into the town. This was our base for 10 days while we waited for our friend, Ellen, to arrive from the UK. We would spend time working out in a last-ditch attempt to train for the high altitude 5-day Salktantay Trek we were about to embark upon (see separate blog post), and wander down into the town in the afternoons to sample as many cute little coffee shops as we could. Justin was also working remotely and had plenty to do, so this time to be in one place and relax for a while was perfect. 

With it being such a touristy place, you do get hounded by people selling tours, massages, paintings, shoe-shining services, photos with their baby llamas pretty much constantly. We sat down on some steps outside the cathedral to have an ice cream and could barely eat it for endlessly saying "No, gracias". We did give in to some traditionally dressed women with their particularly cute baby llamas and had a quick cuddle for some photos. We did wonder about the ethics of this, but often, the llamas' mothers are killed for meat, leaving the babies to be cared for by people. We watched the women as they fed the babies milk and grass on their breaks from getting papped, and they were extremely well taken care of and groomed within an inch of their lives. After all, a plump, fluffy llama makes for a better photo, and earns them more tips. 

The next stop after Cusco on our whirlwind 2.5-week road trip with Ellen, was Huacachina, a desert oasis in the west of Peru. However, to reach Huacachina, we had to drive 900km over the Andes on very windy roads. We had prepared Ellen for this endeavor and she was in charge of music and podcasts. On the first day of driving, we set off at 6am, and after 12 hours, and a traditional Peruvian lunch in a very random town, we reached another very random town called Puquio. We found a hostel which had a double room for £4 each and got very bad pizzas for dinner. The decor in this room was brown and gold, and we had to share 2 beds between the 3 of us, but the alternative was squeezing in the van, so this would do! The next morning, we set off early again and passed the Nazca lines on our way to Huacachina. We arrived there in the afternoon and as we were nearly at sea level, it had become very hot! 

Huacachina is apparently South America's only natural oasis and is quite literally a pool of green water, surrounded by hotels and restaurants, in the middle of a huge dune, in the middle of the Atacama desert. It was quite spectacular. We had booked a 4-bed dorm room and shared with a Swiss guy called Jeremy, who was no trouble. The hotel was very nice, with a pool, sofas, a roof-deck, amazing food, loads of friendly cats, and a view of the oasis. The only thing to do here is go out on the dunes on a buggy and go sand-boarding, so that's what we did! We booked a combined tour and set off on a 12-person buggy bouncing up and down the dunes like we were on a rollercoaster. Once we'd reached the top of a big dune, the guide pulled out the sandboards from the back and with very little instruction, gestured for Justin to lay face down, hold onto the straps, and then pushed him off the top into the abyss. The rest of the group watched as he fired down the dune like a rocket, came off and rolled in the sand at the bottom. This was enough to make the rest of us pretty hesitant, but we all went down eventually. We stayed on the dunes for sunset and then headed back to Huacachina. 

Our next drive was thankfully a short one - just over an hour to the coast, to Paracas. This was another very small, touristy, beach town, with one activity - a boat tour to Ballestas Islands. We stayed in a hostel on the main street and went for dinner at the best place we could find. The food was very tasty but very small. Em had some kind of cocoa-covered pork and mash that looked more like chocolate cake and custard. 

We just had one day here, so in the morning, we ventured off to the marina to find our boat tour. There were hundreds of tourists waiting at the marina! The tour was only 1.5 hours, and the islands are protected, so you have to stay on the boat. The area is known to have endangered species, and Humboldt penguins! We saw only one penguin stood on a rock, who looked like all his mates had migrated and he didn't get the memo. We also saw lots of sea lions, pelicans, Guanay guano birds, and Blue-footed boobies.  Once back on dry land, we grabbed a coffee, and piled back in Pedro, destined for Lima! 

Lima gets a bad reputation. People we know who have been here, have said it's nothing special, and is a bit run down and dangerous. Maybe it is in some parts, but we purposefully stayed in Miraflores and Barranco, artsy, modern neighbourhoods full of touristy things, and we loved it! 

We visited the Modern Art Museum, walked the waterfront gawping at the fancy apartments, went to see the Barbie movie (in English!), and ate at some really good restaurants and cafes. We stayed in Miraflores in a nice apartment block with a gym and a rooftop pool, and we were able to walk around the whole area, feeling very safe. Once Ellen left :-( we moved to a cheaper Airbnb in a different area of Miraflores, and spent a few more days in Lima, getting the van serviced, going to the hairdressers, getting tattoos, and catching up on work. It started to feel like we lived here!