Peru 1st Impressions

Day 1

Arrived Lima and got to the hotel about 1 AM in the morning. Scary 3rd world look at the city in the middle of the night but in the morning was pleasently surprised.

Walked around the old town and the huge pedestrian mall - very cosmopolitan. People seem nice and food is plentiful, cheap and good.



Met out tour leader later in the day and got our briefing for the tour before we were wisked off for a night on the town, courtesy of a friend of our friends. Stayed up way too late drinking Pisco Sours and will pay the price tomorrow.



Day 2

Left Lima this morning, traveling south to Pisco. Reinforced our original 3rd world impressions of Lima´- big city with a lot of very basic accomodations.

Took a boat to the Ballesta islands offshore where the bird and sea-lions are abundant. Very exciting ride and spectacular wildlife.

Then a quick tour of the desert and on to the town of Pisco (what is left of it after last year´s earthquake).





Tomorrow it is on the sand dunes for buggy rides and surfing.

I am an Aunt!

Much to our surprise Murray and Joanne's new baby arrived yesterday - about a month early. Mom and baby Scott are doing fine, Dad seems very proud. We thanked them for arranging the arrival of the baby before we left since we thought this was an event we would miss.

Anticipation

In three days, we leave for South America. This is a two-month trip where we will hopefully be visiting Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay and Brazil. We are joining two different "Adventure" tours with a couple of weeks on our own in the middle (in La Paz).
Getting ready for this trip has been surprisingly time-consuming, getting our respective work commitments looked after and finding someone to look after our house while we are gone. But everything now appears to be in place.
It is our hope that we will be able to post to this blog frequently while we are gone (which would make quite a change from how infrequently we update it while we are here). So keep your computer tuned to this station for further updates.
We will also be checking for emails at svsinetimore@gmail.com and we look forward to hearing from you.
For now, Hasta Luego.

A Sailing Interlude

Yes, we actually went sailing.

We left Nanaimo and slowly made our way north to Desolation Sound. The trip up was very nice; warm weather and some spirited close-hauled sailing, especially north of Westview. We visited False Bay on Lasqueti Island, the town of Westview, Copeland Marine Park and Refuge Cove en route.

Once we were in Desolation, the weather turned a bit cold and rainy, so we spent 4 nights at anchor, 3 in Theodosia Inlet and 1 in Grace Harbour, both parts of Malaspina Inlet. We were nice and cozy in our cabin, with the diesel heater keeping us warm, taking it easy reading books and playing games. This was a great opportunity to see how long we can go without power as the solar panels were not producing much while the sun was hidden by clouds.

On the forth day, the sun came out and we left the inlet and sailed to Cortes Bay where we able to dinghy ashore and do some hiking. As you can see, it's a pretty tough life.

We made our way back south pretty much all under power as the winds had completely left us. We did see some fog but it was not a problem as it kept itself at a distance and just made for a gorgeous photo opportunity.

We motored to Comox where we stayed overnight at the marina, then cris-crossed the straight, visiting the east side of Lasqueti Island (Boho Bay) and Bargain Bay (just south of Pender Harbour) before returning to Nanaimo just ahead of a major storm front that was moving in.

On this short trip, we saw more wildlife than we ever have before, many seals and birds of course, but also a Sea Lion and some Dolphins. We were beginning to doubt that these creatures even existed.

Unfortunately, we had to cut out trip short and hurry back to Edmonton. We have a lot of work to do, shutting down Richard's business and getting ready for our trip to South America in October.