LOTS of adventures and travels in Peru!

The same week that my friend Darla headed back to the states, Bev and Scott also headed off to the states to spend a month visiting friends and family. In turn, I had the whole month of June without any scheduled clinics or trainings….aka…time to do some traveling and fun whilst continuing my projects for the mission.

So first I headed off with my friend Massiel to Arequipa where we had a great time visiting some of our girlfriends.

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Then Massiel and I headed off on a 3 day hike of the beautiful Colca Canyon, which is the deepest canyon in the world! __________________________________

(Even deeper than the Grand Canyon)

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Our third and last day of hiking started with a “3 hour” climb up out of the canyon…which Massiel and I dominated in just about 2 hours exactly! We were the first to make it to the top and felt like superwomen!

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With the rest of our group once they all reached the top as well.

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On the trip back from the Colca Canyon I made friends with some of the locals…

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And decided it was finally time for some uber cliche tourist pictures with llamas, alpacas, and giant hawk thingy.

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This little guy was soooo sweet…and really likes potato chips!

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We stopped at some amazing hot springs on the way back…set in the middle of some beautiful mountains.

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Once back to Arequipa I bid Massiel farewell and spent an afternoon whitewater rafting on the Rio Chili outside of Arequipa.

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Our two guides were two young Argentian guys who live and breath rafting and absolutely love their job…

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and in turn made the whole experience a TON of fun!

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It was a relatively tame rafting experience…

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with just a few class 4 rapids,  which were an awesome rush.

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The whole experience definitely wet my appetite for some more whitewater rafting in the very near future!

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I then headed to the province of Ica, Peru to the tiny oasis of Huacachina….a VERY neat and tranquil little oasis…

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which lies in the middle of hundreds of miles of desert and sand dunes.

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Beautiful view from my hotel room in the oasis!

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The big draw to Huacachina is the amazing sandboarding that you can do on the massive sand dunes right outside the oasis.

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Sandboarding standing up is incredibly difficult (even for master snowboarders) and generally kind of dull as you must go fairly slow in order to keep standing…thus the majority of the sandboarders, including myself, go down on their stomach…

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Doing so you can REALLY fly down the gigantic sand dunes! A huge adrenaline rush!

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Walked away from the sandboarding fully intact…

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with just some minor bruising from the board…when you hit a bump flying down a dune on a piece of wood your bones take a good beating!

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With my group, guide, and our crazy fun dune buggy!

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While still at Huacachina I went with a group of other American tourists I met to take a tour of the Tacama winery and vineyards, which is the oldest winery in all of South America!

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The tour of the winery was free…

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along with a free wine tasting of about 10 of their wines, which I found to be surprisingly delicious, since Peru isn’t really known for its wines.

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The next morning I took an hour bus ride to the ocean and went on a tour of the islands of Paracas, which are home to an UNBELIEVABLE number of various bird species and a number of mammals as well.

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This island was literally a solid MASS of birds…all that you see that is black are birds! Literally hundreds of thousands on just one of the islands alone!

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Saw a handful of adorable little penguins…

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Saw thousands of the Peruvian seabird called the Peruvian Booby…yep…that’s really its name…

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Saw some absolutely precious sea lions…

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This girl was posing so nicely for us!

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Saw a handful of dolphins…but was never quite quick enough with the camera!

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And at the dock there were tons of huge and amazing pelicans!

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I then headed off to the city of Nasca and took a half hour flight to see the Nasca lines…which are one of Peru´s and the world´s biggest mysteries/wonders.

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There are over 350 different designs and lines in the Nasca plains…covering hundreds of kilometers, and they are sooooo gigantic that they can only be seen by air. It is believed that the Incans made these enormous designs across the plains as a way to communicate with their gods or with those from another world…since they are sooo huge and only visible by air, it is an incredible mystery how a civilization could have made the designs hundreds and hundreds of years ago.  Below are pics of some of the most famous designs…

The monkey…

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The Condor…

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The alien man on the mountainside….

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The hummingbird…

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The spider…

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And the tree of life and hands….which are two of the much smaller drawings, and you can still see how large they are compared to these buildings!

Having seen the lines…I can understand how many believe that extraterrestrials had a hand in it…they are just so enormous and spanning so many miles…seems truly unbelievable that humans could have made them hundreds of years ago!

After my visit to Nasca I headed back home to Puno…and was soon off working and playing in Bolivia…stay tuned for my stories and pictures from my adventures there!