Nazca-Paracas-Lima

Hi Guys

This is our second evening in Lima. We are staying in a really nice hostel in the very western Miraflores disctrict of Lima. Now let me summarize from Cusco to Lima. On Saturday evening we took the overnightbus to Nazca. For the approx 650kms you need over 13h. Reason for that is the catastrophic situation of the curvy mountain roads down to Nazca (there are minimum 2 passes over 3500 or 4000m, while Nazca is on the sea level). Anyway, the trip was quite bumpy. First I thought, it will be just temporary, then it went on shaking for a very long time.
Having arrived in Nazca, we took a overland tour to see some of the famous Nazca lines (research has been conducted by the German Geography (!!!) teacher and Mathematician Maria Reiche from the 1940s until her death in 1998). These are lines and shapes carved in the pampa ground which you can only see from an elevated position. Famous are overflights with a small Cessna plane. However, as Alice is not such a fan of flying as I am and the flight is quite curvy we did abstrain from flying (we also heard that a plane crashed just there last week, so our motivation was even smaller). In the afternoon we continued to a small seatown called Paracas, just outside Pisco (totally devastated from a quake last year). There only the two problems which are always present for a backpacker in Peru. First, watch with an eagle's eyes after your luggage stored in the undercarriage of the bus and second, peruvian time. It gets dark at 6pm sharp and it is not recomended to be outside in many places when there is darkness. In addition to that for getting to Paracas, we had to get of at the Cruze in Pisco, which is basically a huge bus stand on the Panamericana highway. My adrenaline was quite high, because it was about 8pm when we arrived a the Cruze. A guy then helped us with getting a taxi and a hostel (of course he was from the hostel, but the prices were as described in the book, so everything was fine). Then on Monday we took a boatcruise to small island in the Paracas natural reserve. It was there were we saw lots of birds, their excrements, penguins, sea lions and tons of pelicans.
Ok, after this tour we chose to be stuck in town for a while, because the seafront was so nice. For everyone knowing Alice, it must be obvious, as she adores the sea and sea food. So we had some lunch. I chose the fried fish.... she chose the raw fish. Lets say everyone has preferences for oneself.
Then we continued to Lima. Lima is very interesting. You see everything, from the very save and clean Miraflores to the informal settlements clustering like a huge sponge around town. Something very interesting to me is the unexpected cleanness of Peru. Of course there is waste and garbage is being dumped into a landfill and people do work there, but on the streets, everywhere where I have been, it unexpectedly clean.
Tomorow evening/afternoon we want to continue north to Trujillo. Its been now over one week in Peru. Its total fun, however not bein fluent in Spanish is kind of annoying.