Just a little bit of sand

One of the best days and nights we had in Peru was in the Ica sand dunes. We arrived and were quickly strapped into buggies that took us racing across the dunes. In between the roller coaster ride we stopped and went sand boarding down massive slopes. We thought we had experienced sand boarding in New Zealand, turns out its not quite as tame in Peru! The boards were like snow boards and so you lie down, pull your elbows in but spread your legs to balance. We would pick up a lot of speed on the way down often narrowly missing the group waiting at the bottom! After watching the sun set over the dunes we were driven to our 'camp', which had some stools around a campfire and even a toilet tent. Our drivers cooked lots of meat on the fire and kept topping up everyone's cup with pisco sour which is a South American cocktail. Our tour leader also made an eskie punch for our night in the dunes which consisted of 11 bottles of spirit, 4 cartons of wine and some juice! It was a great evening running up the dunes in the dark and salsa dancing on the sand before sleeping under the stars. Afterwards we found sand in our ears for days and have only just removed the last of it from our sleeping bags!

Our buggy

Sand boarding slope...yup, it was just as steep as it looks

Our stomachs dropped going down huge slopes

Gorgeous sunset and views

"Camp"

Our crazy drivers

Lima, the capital of Peru, was the next place on the itinerary. We spent 2 nights in the city doing some exploring, dampened only by our inability to speak Spanish. Turns out not many South Americans speak english and so we relied on our friend, Ivana, to be our translator, and when she wasn't there we ended up in KFC for lunch because we knew what to buy without Spanish! Unfortunately we could only order 6 pieces of popcorn chicken because the lyrics to the Offspring song don't go up to number 9.
We also had our first night out with the group in South America. We ended up in a club called Tequila where we danced the night away as the only girls in the place that weren't hookers.

The palace

We had to search, but there are some pretty areas of Lima

Despite missing Machu Picchu, Peru still has plenty of archeological sites to offer and so we visited our second lot of the week, The Temple of the Sun and Moon. These are not the original names of the temples because the Moche civilisation did not use written word, meaning nobody knows the original names and so Sun and Moon are just used for ease. The temples were built by the Moche civilisation in 500AD for both political and religious purposes. In the quarter-mile distance between the temples was the city, with archaeological evidence showing high population density and manufacturing activity. We visited the Temple of the Moon which had 5 levels to it. Each time the temple was rebuilt (and this was done periodically, perhaps for religious reasons) the next level was simply built on top of the previous one. Unfortunately this means they are unable to fully excavate the lower levels without destroying the top levels. The paintings and carvings of the fourth temple are so well preserved we could see full walls of it.

It was quite a contrast between the Peruvian desert and the stunning mountains

Temple of the Sun beyond the excavations of the original city

Each mud brick was hand-made and the builders left their mark in each one

Sacrificial alter

Entrance to the fourth temple (the hole was created by grave robbers trying to ransack the temple)

Very intricate designs all made by hand

Peruvian hairless dog, which even us animal lovers were slightly creeped out by