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 ...the last thing we wanted do was to approach the city at dusk with Michael at the wheel (tired) and E-J map reading (even more tired). After lots of shouting, 'I SAID THAT WAY YOU IDIOT' and 'WHY CANT YOU READ A MAP PROPERLY!', we ended up in a less than salubrious suburb on the outskirts completely and utterly lost. With plenty of people staring at us and the fear of ending up stuck down a dead end street with plenty of people ready to relieve us of our car and all our belongings we thankfully spotted a taxi which michael sped up to and offered 3 times the going rate to get us to the area we wanted to go to...

Miraflores is the place to stay in as a tourist in Lima so this is where we found ourselves a hotel with parking out the front. (no camping in cities remember..) Alarming the owners of the hotel we proceeded to unload absolutely everything we have from the car in readiness for its' service at the local Toyota garage beginning in the morning. Needless to say we became the source of some amusement and amazement for all the hotel staff as well as some of the guests. Not many people check in to a hotel and proceed to take a ladder, 10 boxes, 4 ruck sacks and many many other bags to their room.

The service took 3 days so we spent that time picking up a few things we needed, visiting no less than 5 camping shops (looking for a camping table) doing a big supermarket shop and wandering around the city. We also managed to go to a great restaurant on the recommendation of Michael's friend Corinna as well as the incredible and slightly disturbing Franciscan monastery and church of San Francisco. This place is famous for its catacombs and its remarkable library, where you can see thousands of antique texts, some dating as far back as the conquistadors. The underground catacombs are the site of an estimated 70,000 burials and the bone-filled crypts are fairly unnerving. Unfortunately we forgot our cameras that day so have no pictures to show you.

Upon leaving Lima with our newly washed, hoovered, cleaned and fully serviced car, we headed south to the tiny resort village of Huacachina, which is set around a little lagoon and dominated by a backdrop of giant sand dunes. It is quite a strange place, although this might have been because the hostel we chose to stay at was seriously hectic and full of plenty of annoying 19 yr old backpackers as well as staff who were more interested in getting pissed than anything else! After a night enduring banging music until 5am, we set out on an exhilirating dune buggy ride out into the dunes to try a spot of sandboarding.

click here to see e-j showing how it's done

sand buggying video too

Although E-J ended up being pretty good, Michael spent the 3 hours on his arse prompting the conclusion that snowboarding is always going to be where its at! The dune buggying was incredible though and bloody scary!

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