"It's hotter than the sun in 'ere" -- Iain 'Cheese' Rudkin

Lima came and went. It's a huge city, and I mainly drifted around the Miraflores district, also known as "gringo central", and tried to acclimatise to the heat. A fella I met at the dorm said how much Lima reminded him of Los Angeles. Not having been, I have no idea. Do the following photos show any likeness?

After having my fill of Lima, I took a bus from the capital to the city of Nazca. I'd heard of the Nazca Lines when I was a lot younger, and had always wanted to see them. Before booking myself onto one of the flights, however, I thought it'd be a bit of fun to tag along with another group of people who were being taken out to the Pre-Incan Necropolis.

The graves, and their mummies, were preserved in the desert's dry heat as best as possible, save for the activities of grave robbers who had taken complete pieces of textile and pottery. There were a number of graves like these around the one site, and even on the surface, the entire area was littered with human bone fragments.

What surprised me most, was the Nazca aqueduct system or Puquios. They are over 1400years old, but are still used today as sources of water for the city.

The canals are mainly covered over, with small tunnels left such as that shown in the photo below. The height of the tunnel is barely a meter, but they are still cleaned out in the same ancient way -- by having a man climb down one of the spiralling "manholes", and crawl through the tunnel removing any rubbish along the way.

The aqueduct tunnels -- the light in the distance is the next "manhole"

The spiraling path down to the "manhole" -- these are spaced out along the path of the aqueduct

The Nazca lines themselves are amazing. I met someone on this trip who said they were content with seeing photos of the lines rather than get into a tiny plane and risk losing their breakfast to see the lines for themselves. I totally disagree -- the flight cost $90 for around a 30-40 minute flight, but to me, it was worth every penny!

The astronaut

The monkey

It was something definitely crossed off the bucket list.

I spent 5 days in Nazca, and then left on another bus to Cuzco. The 15 hour, overnight bus trip turned into a 21 hour journey. Out route took us near a river which had burst its banks and caused mudslides down the mountain and onto the road. I know it can't be helped, but why, oh why, did they have to put a Mel Gibson film on to entertain us?!

More from Cuzco soon...

"I´ve left my book of quotes in Rothera" -- Ross

So they´ve let me out into the big wide world. Instead of free lodgings in return for work, I now have to find a place to sleep and decide what to do every day. Instead of regimented meal times, I now have to choose when, where and what to eat. Instead of a rudimentary grunting, I now have to use spoken language. I´m not quite sure it´s me yet.

Four ex-Rothera winterers left on the Dash 7 flight, along with a number of V.I.Ps, including Rt. Hon. David Willets, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Overseas Territories Director, Colin Roberts, who were down to look at the Antarctic science operations both at Rothera, and the surrounding local areas, and specifically to be shown the importance of the work that is done there, in looking at the effects of climate change. After landing at the military Mount Pleasant Airport on the Falkland Islands, the VIPs were taken to their accomodation, while we were taken to the settlement of Darwin.

Darwin Lodge is a fantastic place, run by some good people, and in a remote spot, where it was quite pleasant to get out and see some different wildlife, and of course, some green stuff! I had honestly expècted to be shocked by wading through grass after so long wading through snow, but it felt totally normal again. Using money, crossing the road, and other things that I expected to find a challenge just became second nature, as they had been before going South. I suppose the Falkland Islands is a nice bridge into the real world, as the population is so low, and is concentrated in the capital of Stanley. There are a lot of remnants from the conflict between UK and Argentina 30 years ago -- some mental ones, in the attidudes of the Islanders, and some physical ones, such as that below.

It seemed a shame that some of the beaches were off limits, due to suspected mine presence there -- beaches such as the ones of Gypsy Cove, home to a colony of Magellenic penguins.

Gypsy Cove is a good walk away from Stanley. Other sites of wildlife interest include Volunteer Point, but this would have been a three hour journey, most of which would have been off road, and would have worked out pretty expensive. Instead a couple of us satisfied ourselves with the mysterious Gnome Colony at Kay´s B&B in Stanley.

Every time I got my camera out, they stopped moving, I swear!

The Rockhopper penguin colony, just outside Stanley, was a shorter off road journey (around 1 hour), and the farmer who owned the land gave us a bit of the history of the land, and local points of interest, while he drove us to the coast and to the colony.

This was a beautiful spot, despite me ignoring the advice that the rocks are pretty slippy, and falling flat on my arse.

After a week in the Falklands, I flew to Lima, Peru, via Punta Arenas and Santiago, Chile (where I missed my connection!).

Lima is right on the coast, looking out west over the Pacific Ocean. It´s an enormous place, but I´ve focussed most of my wanderings in the very gringo area of Miraflores, while I work up the tourist spirit to get down to Nazca. I will leave tomorrow!