We didn’t stay long in Lima, it’s the capital of Peru but there wasn’t masses to do in the city, we took a walking tour around the old town which was interesting, we found out lots of cool facts like how it is the 2nd largest desert capital city after Cairo, Egypt, it has the largest bull fighting ring in Latin America, A third of Peru’s population live there and it never experiences rain, only dribble. We also saw the world’s smallest Catholic church and tried our first pisco sours, which was delicious!
Pisco is the national spirit of Peru made from fermented grapes, it was developed by the Spanish as an alternative to the expensive gin imports from spain. Unlike most national drinks we’ve tried (looking at you aguardiente) it is actually very nice! The second day we went shopping and I bought some trainers, I finally don’t have to decide between cold toes in my sandles or looking like Dora the explorer in my walking boots!
That night we headed to Huacachina on an overnight bus, we were told it would be cold there so wore our warmest coats, Huacachina is a beautiful oasis in the desert so we should have known it wasn’t cold, but we listened to the locals which again was probaly foolish as they tend to be in a duffel coat in any temperature lower than 25 degrees. After lookong like idiots and peeling off our 500 layers we really enjoyed the oasis, it’s like nothing weve ever experienced before, a tiny little village around an oasis, it was so beautiful. We spent the day sunbathing and relaxing and in the evening we climbed up a huge sand dune behind our hostal and watched the sun go down. It was absolutly stunning and picturesque until the boys got bored and started trying to push eachother down the slope and of course me and Grace had to show them how it was done with a sneek attack rolling down the hill to take out their legs from underneath them.
The next day we went on a pisco tour, ‘tour’ is a strong word, what actually happened was after a guy approached us asking for $100US for a tour and we laughed him out of the hostel a local guy offered to take us for S./25 (£5.80). It turned out to be him and his mate driving us there in old bangers but it did the job. Once we reached the winery we were given a free tour around and the process of making peruvian wines and pisco was explained to us. It’s much the same as in the rest of the world only much faster as it is warm year round here and is stored in big pottery urn type things, technical I know, you try remembering facts when you’re several glasses down! After the tour we also got to taste some peruvian wines and like most things in south america it is far to sweet! The pisco however was absolutly beautiful and we ended up buying a few bottles of different flavours, straberry, passion fruit and coffee. We were then taken to another winery but as wed already heared the ‘official tour’ our driver took us on his own tour which consisted on giving us as much as every kind of alcohol he could get his hands on, which we gleefully accepted. We also got to try pouring the drinks ourselves using the bamboo stick they dip in the pottery urns and then pour from, it was a lot more difficult than it sounds, especially when already quite tipsy, I was voted best in the group, im not quite sure what thay says about me! We decided to carry on our pisco tasting at our hostel with our newly purchased bottles and after watch the sunset from a lovely rooftop bar over dinner before heading off on yet another night bus.
As always I’ll keep you updated on what we get up to next,
Lots of love,
Alice x