Last Days in Peru

I am writing this from our apartment at Club La Santa in Lanzarote, which I guess will be the last instalment of our blog. For now though here is the last part of our travels in South America.


After leaving the Sacred Valley (Machu Pichu and Ollantaytambo) we cabbed the 60k back to Cusco where we stayed one more night and then took the night bus to Arequipa.

Arequipa is the second largest Peruvian cities and is surrounded by huge snow-capped volcanoes with many old buildings made from white volcanic rock.

Arequipa and Volcan Misti

We think they were deep fried sheep heads at the local market in Arequipa

The central part of Arequipa was beautiful and this is the main Plaza de Armas

The volcano dominates the city

From the roof of the Santa Catalina Monastry

We stayed for  4 days sightseeing the city and relaxing quite a lot, the hostel had a TV with DVDs,  Playstation and computers so the kids were happy. Well not so good for Bob as some of the Playstation games made him quite angry and aggressive, so was quite pleased when we left!

Great colours in the Santa Catalina Monastry

JUst a nice picture!

...and a big cactus

Now that we were at a lower altitude we did try a couple of runs around the city but with the pollution and still at 600m it was not all that pleasant.

The national drink , Pisco Sour and yes Steve did actually like it

The national kids drink, Inca Cola

Another night bus took us to our next destination close to Ica. Huacachina is a resort village set around a desert oasis, built for the Peruvian elite a 100 years ago is now a foreign tourist playground. Here we all tried our hand at sand boarding which was a good intro for the kids into the delights of snow-boarding. Unfortunately it was not in the same league as snow, too hot, too much climbing back up the hill and too slow!

Steve enjoying the dune buggy ride

Sarah sand bording

Bobby getting low on the board

Amber speeding down the dunes

Bobby's new friends

Up in the dunes above the oasis

The Dune machine

Sand everywhere

A nice place to do your homework

Onward to our final destination in Peru, Lima where we had been invited to stay with Steve’s old friend Luchu Nieri.

Lucho was the perfect host, not only putting us up in his fantastic apartment but cooking some wonderful food and taking us on a guided tour of the old city. The highlight however was a visit to his new restaurant, not yet opened, called Amaz and which specialises in dishes either from or using ingredients from the Amazon . We got to sample a variety of the dishes and have to say the food was amazing and unique but not for kids!

Lucho and his great dog Lucca

Pre lunch cocktails at Lucho's Restaurant Amaz.

The kids loved the dog

We also met with Dan Simms and his family. Dan moved to Lima from London  15 years ago and is now married to Fiorella and has 2 lovely daughters.

Dan and Fiorella with daughters Chloe and Emma

So Lima was a bit of an eating extravaganza but we did manage a couple of runs to work off the excess.

And back to London for one night before heading off for our last 2 weeks in Club La Santa, Lanzarote for 2 weeks of fitness activities which should help get us back into shape .