I continued to Nasca, went to the Maria-Reiche-Planetarium to hear a lecture about the Nasca-lines in the evening and was all set for a flight over the lines the next day...but it just didn't happen....I spend several hours at the small airport, hoping for a flight, but due to the recent planecrash there was just one company doing flights, which was of course booked for several days, and the other companys were waiting for permission to fly from Lima, but obviously didn`t get it for more flights that day... I went to the "Mirador" instead to get at least a glimpse of the lines and had a funny busride back to town, sitting up with the driver like a figurehead behind the windscreen. I went on to Arequipa, probably one of the most beautiful cities in Peru, with glistening white buildings made of sillar (volcanic stone). I did a 3 day- trekking through the nearby Canyon de Colca. First, we went to a viewingpoint called Cruz del Condor. When we got there, loads of people were already there in hope of spotting a Condor....and after a while people started moving... a huge Condor was doing rounds above our heads, just as to make sure that everyone got a good picture of him, I swear I heard him chuckle up there at the sight of all those people "OOhhing" and "AAhhing" at the sight of him. We started to hike down into the canyon near a village called "Cabanaconde", spotted another condor on the way down,crossed the river at the bottom, stayed with a local family for a night, went on to learn about different plants and the local clothing, passing through small villages on the way and finally arrived at the oasis San Galle, where we lingered in the pool for the rest of the day. On the last day we left before sunrise to hike out of the canyon- a 3 hour hike up- (we resisted the temptation of getting our bums on a mule for the way up, but later rewarded ourselfes with stuffing ourselfes at a huge buffet that offered everything from alpaca, ceviche to cuy ) and on the way back to Arequipa we spotted lamas, alpacas, vicuñas and flamingos in the "national reserve of salinas and aqua blanca".

We had a look at another archeological pre-inca site near Trujillo called "Huaca de la Luna & de la Sol" which was impressive, and returned to the market several times during the day to have another piece of that yummy chocolate cake and another fresh fruit juice..."siempre con hambre" is a phrase I´ll have to add to my personal description. After a sleepless night in an overnight-bus I made it to Huaraz and the "Cordilleras blancas". Considering the weather, I decided to do an one day hike to the Laguna 69. We got several camionettas/busses to get to the trailhead in the Huascarán National Park, passing different lakes whose colours varied from turquoise to a milky light blue. The sky was covered with clouds while I was struggeling to get up to 4.600 meters, moving at the speed of a sloth, thankful for every cascading waterfall along the way I could take a picture of. Well, I made it up to the lake just in time for the clouds to disappear and reveal the jagged, snowy mountains that back the lake and also the stunning mountainranges of this beautiful nationalpark. Needless to say that after enjoying the view for half an hour on the way back down it started to rain, by the time we got back to the road everything that wasn't covered by my emergency rainponcho was completely soaked. We flagged down a passing truck, got on the back and made our way out of the nationalpark, chased by clouds and fog. But it was definitely worth it. Another sleepless night in a bus and I made it to Lima, had a look around the town for a day, the most fascinating thing for me was to make it back to where I started in the morning on those variety of busses/minibusses. I couldn't warm up to the idea of staying on another overnight bus again just yet, so I decided to break the trip further down the Panamericana - I stopped at Huancachina, a little oasis in the middle of waste sand dunes - like a big playground, one of the places where the tourists must outnumber the locals, but it's quite a nice setting if you manage to ignore the rubbish lying around in the dunes and the sound of howling engines of the sandbuggies rushing down the dunes.

I thought I could escape the dusk of the Panamericana by doing a bit of a detour - from Chiclayo I went to Chachapoyas, on to Cajamarca and then back to the Panamericana: to Trujillo. Surely, the bus trips got longer than in Ecuador. Still love to go to the markets, and I always buy some fruits I've never seen before like PEPINO, BABACO, TAXO or GUAYABA to taste or make juices from. And of course, can`t help buying mangos all the time - so juicy that the juice keeps droping down to your elbows while eating them. Near Chachapoyas, there´s the pre-inca fortress of Kuelap to marvel at, and lots of sarcofarcos far up in the rocks. In Cajamarca I run into a bit of a fiesta on a main square, and students of an university performed dances in traditional dresses while lots of locals with huge hats were watching. Well, I made it to Trujillo, and went to the nearby beach town of Huanchaco today, to finally see the pacific! On or way back we had a look at Chan-Chan, another archeological site close to Trujillo, dusty remains of the Chimu-empire.