Day 3

We forgot to tell you that we saw vultures in the centre of Lima yesterday - honest. And it was overcast in Lima because it is winter and the fog comes in from the sea.
Anyway Day 3 started with our departure from the hotel at 6am {breakfast at 5!}
we then set off on the Panamerican Highway starting throught the very poorest shanty towns south of Lima and going south with the Pacific rollers on our right.

The fog kept us company as we watched the huge sand dunes roll by.

We stopped for my (David) first Inca Cola at El Piloto and bought a newspaper which told us that today is National Pisco (local brandy) day and that illicit miners are using the Nasca lines as highways to remove gold from their mines, polluting the place with mercury!!!!!!!!!!!!

We stopped at Picaras - quechuan for high winds - to get on the boat trip. Whaow! Half an hour out to the guana covered rocks and an hour round them. There was a family of dolphins in the bay at Picaras - residents apparently. We saw sea lions male and female on the odiferous rocks, boobies, penguins, Inca terns and pelicans . Apart from the smell, only down wind, it was magic. People actually live there every seven years to collect the shit. The first time the guana was thirty metres deep!

When we got back to land about twelve we saw the first of a Peruvian BLUE SKY! And the sun came out and it has stayed with usa ever since from a blue, blue sky.

Along the stupendous sand dunes to Ica, birth place of Ronaldo our guide, and home to a famous winery and of a pisco maker called Picasso in whose grounds we enjoyed a magic self service lunch. I like the raw fish in lime juice - ceviche.

We crossed the sand dunes to the oasis, Huacachina - she who makes you cry - wait for the pictures.

We are now banned from using the word am·z·ng!

At the oasis they were sand boarding and taking buggy rides.

Finally around seven we reached our hotel having crossed the plane where the Nazca lines are.

Internet access is free - for the ONE computer we dashed for.

See you tomorrow when, young man, I hope my grammar may have improved.