the first stretch was just like any other night out, starting in the hostel then following on to the city centre. it was upon our return to the hostel at around seven in the morning however that we upped it a notch. a large group of us (friends and acquaintances from along the way) gathered in the hostel's tv room to carry on the fun, only for the manager to walk in and suggest in no uncertain terms that we headed to bed - something that none of the revellers were ready to do, and so it was back out into Cusco town. being about nine o'clock on a Sunday morning we knew we would be struggling for alcohol, and seeing all bars, cafes and restaurants closed our hopes dwindled even further. however after asking a local lad if he knew of anywhere, the gang of us were led into a small grocery strore, only to find a few tables scattered out the back with a few old local men scattered around them, beers in hand. now not many people can say they have spent the early hours of God's day sat in the back of a Peruvian shop drinking beer with the local old boys, it definitely set the tone for the day to come. classicly we had perched ourselves next to the local drunk/nutter who, before each sip of his drink, welcomed us to Peru in Spanish and insisted on us raising our glasses. this eventually got tiresome so we upped and headed out to see if anything was coming alive, it was.
as we emerged out into the bright sunlight shining down on Cusco's main square we were greeted by a marching parade of uniformed soldiers, followed by the local school's graduation parade. it was pretty amazing and in our slightly intoxicated state rather surreal to see. had it not been for our educated decision to carry the night on we would never have seen such a spectacle, a fact that we kept reminding ourselves the following day when we were hanging out of our arseholes! to take in the parade properly we headed up some stairs to a nice restaurant and sat out on the balcony overlooking the square with a few nice cold cervecas, again a pretty special experience. by eleven o'clock more places started to come alive, leading us to an Irish bar across the square for the rather dull Villa Portsmouth game, along with a livening tequila shot for Ste and myself. the target set early on was to stay up until six o'clock as this was when our Dutch pal and fellow all nighterer (probably not a word) Justus was due to head home. other than one outing to the local Market to purchase some hallucenagenic cactus known as San Pedro (to be sampled at a later date), the majority of this time was spent wasting away in Paddy's talking about all aspects of the World Cup. just after six we headed back to the hostel to freshen up and continue just as we had begun, ending up again in the bars/clubs of Cusco's main square. as we were sat in the first bar sipping some rather mincey cocktails, one of Gra's old flames randomly appeared (when I say old flame I mean OLD. it was a middle aged Peruvian woman who the Clam Man had charmed in the club the night before). struggling to shake grandma all night he decided it wasn't going to be a wasted night and so headed back to her house. i say house, but as he explained to us the next day it was more of a single room, with no bathroom, kitchen, or even furniture, other than a bed that was mainly made of cardboard. unsuprisingy this provided endless amusement for the rest of us the following day, and for even further giggles he told of how mid-deed the old dear stopped only to ask "do you love me??" - brilliant. anyway, for the rest of us this rather ridiculous and bizarre session concluded itself at around eight o'clock on Monday morning, a solid twenty-four hour kip was to follow accompanied by a distinct 'under the weather' feeling. for most of us the final day in Cusco was spent waiting around the hostel for our evening bus journey - not for Mark. the Shark still had fuel in the tank and decided to call up a local girl he had met prior to our Inka trail, rent out a double room in a hostel down the road, and get his moneys worth. the boy literally never stops.
it was definitely time to move on, and our next stop was the amazing and unusual town of Huacachina. we arrived at the larger town of Ica and hopped in a cab for the short journey to our destination. for a bit of in-car entertainment we had successfully chosen another old nutter as our cab driver. having picked up a couple of ice lollies from a street vender he tapped Ste on the knee, and proceeded to act out a bit of fellacio on the colourful lolly. this caused some initial laughs followed by an uneasy silence as we all wondered if we were going to make it. fortunately we arrived in Huacachina, innocence still in tact, and piled out of the car, only for the old freakshow to start to driving off with the boot open and all our bags still inside. not even a ten minute taxi ride is uneventful over here.
all this aside Huacachina was a beautiful place. basically a small town built around a lagoon, surrounded by miles and miles of sand dunes. for this reason the main draw of the place is sandboarding and dune buggying. having spent one day enjoying a relax by the pool in the scorching sun, we booked ourselves onto the four thirty buggy/boarding tour, allowing us to take in sunset on the dunes. as we climbed into the jeep we scoffed at the full restraint harnesses, but soon realised that they were indeed necessary. as we set off across the sand we were smashed all around the cabin on what felt like more of a rollercoaster than a buggy ride - absolutely quality. the boarding itself was also great fun, taking some slopes standing and some lying on the board. all boarders were unscathed until the final and steepest slope, and once again it was me who was to take a spill. opting for the lying down position i set off down the hill and quickly gained some pretty scary speed. seeing a man crouched down at the bottom of the slope directly in my path wasn't what i wanted to see. i quickly concluded that there was no way out of it so turned my head and lowered my shoulder ready for impact, it bloody hurt. once again however i was lucky to come away with just a few grazes and a face full of sand, with my counterpart escaping unharmed other than a broken pair of specs.
after these two fairly relaxing days it was on to Lima and the much anticipated reunion with old Mr Blezard (an amigo from uni). arriving at seven on the Friday evening it was a case of a quick turnaround and out. our taxi driver encouraged us to use his in-car iPod adaptor and so we crawled slowly through the Lima rush hour traffic with unacceptably filthy dubstep blaring out - a good start. having checked into our quiet but nice hostel and changed, picked up some drinks and cooked chicken and chips from the supermarket, we headed round to Luke and Pam's flat. the pad, the company, and the resulting night out were all spot on and it was great to have some local knowledge to know where was good to go. after a quality night out at a rather upmarket club on the sea front we all retired for some sleep in preparation for the next evenings events (once again the notorious lothario Clam spent a night away from his own bed, this time unfortunately just on a local girls couch, a request of the father!).
rousing the next day at around six all sporting pretty grim hangovers, the gang headed out for some more local cuisine, a KFC no less, before returning to Luke and Pam's flat for round two. the effects of the night before meant a slower start but the spirits were soon back up after a few snifters and the party carried on to a cool and very London-feeling local bar. more people joined the parade including Pam's cousin and his mate, a fashion photographer who socially enjoys the company of the likes of our very own Kate Moss. another wild night ensued, this time in a club called Tequila. arriving there at four in the morning the worry was that it would be winding down. on the contrary, it was just getting started and kept going until eleven the next morning. we retired slightly earlier as we had set out sights on the San Pedro cactus that was still burning a hole in Ste's bag. so Ste, Ryan and myself headed back to the dorm, to be joined later by the two sharks after another successful night's hunt. having got in some citrus supplies from the shop (after being told by the man in Cusco Market that citrus fruits can help to bring you out of a bad trip) we returned to our room with some cups of tea to mix the unusual plant substance into. the green gunk that resulted was rancid and took some serious effort to get down. once down, things started to become quite different. after a slow start the green stuff took effect and began with a very chilled feeling, or 'monged' may be a better expression. then things got a bit more weird. for me it was only when i closed my eyes that strange things happened, but the plant seemed to have taken Ryan a tad stronger. this became apparent when he requested (with a look of real terror on his face) for me to check under the table in the room as he had seen a monster of some form under there. i decided it'd be a good idea to put the light on and as i was getting a bit bored of it and wanting to sleep, i took the sellers advice and wolfed down three oranges - it did fuck all other than to give me a bloated belly. still at least i got some of my five a day. by the end of the experience our room looked like a piece by Tracey Emin, with a couple of pizza boxes strewn on the floor and all stray furniture lying on it's side after Ryan's attempts to remove any potentially scary objects from his eyeline. after this pretty mental but enjoyable experience we all got some much needed sleep.
our final day in Lima was a chilled affair and a day of goodbyes. saying our farewells to our hosts Luke and Pam, and to Mark and Ry as they embarked on a seventy two plus hour bus journey back down to Iguazu. it was an early night to bed in preparation for a three o'clock start for our flight up to Medellin.
Lima had been amazing and we were expecting much of the same from our final nation, the infamous Columbia...
17.04.10
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