San Fernando

Yesterday we had a great day, we woke up and had a huge breakfast at the hotel and then we were picked up by 2 guys, Cesar and Roberto in their 4x4 to take us out to San Fernando. We drove on the Pan American highway for about 45 minutes and then pulled off the main road and onto the desert. We drove across the desert for about another hour and a half until we came to some huge sand dunes - here the guys pulled out some sand boards and we all had a go at boarding down a little dune, Sam and Will managed to stand up but I prefered to sit down - we stayed here for about 20 minutes and then Will moved on to the big dune and me and Sam stayed on the little one. After a while we walked back to the truck which was parked on the edge of the dune but we couldn't see where Will and the guides were and there was a strong wind which was blowing the sand into our mouths, hair, eyes, ears etc... suddenly we felt really isolated up there on the dunes alone in the middle of nowhere...'Shall we sit in the car and wait?' I asked Sam, 'No' he said, 'look at the truck' and it started to move a little bit towards the edge of the dune!! We looked around and finally saw Will and the other guys on a big dune, they waved us over to them. We walked across the top of the dune and Will told us that we would have to sandboard down the big slope as the driver was going to take the car down the side of the steep dune and meet us at the bottom. It's ok Roberto assured us, 'Cesar is the Peruvian 4x4 champion driver!' We watched as Cesar drove the car down the hill and spun in a neat circle at the bottom, meanwhile we sat on our sandboards and cruised down to meet him.

We got back in the car and drove to San Fernando which is an isolated coastal peninsula - so isolated that only 2 drivers in Nazca know the way there - when we arrived the peninsula was deserted and all you could hear were the calls of the sea lions (which sound like sheep!). Sam really wanted to see a condor and we walked to the top of the cliff, then like a scene from a film, a huge condor with a wingspan of about 5m, flew up over the cliff and over our heads. They are huge and black with white tipped wings, sudddenly more appeared and there were 4 condors swooping over us and it seemed showing off for the camera. They stayed for about 5 minutes and then as quickly as they appeared they were gone. We turned our attention to the sea lions which were below us in the bay - 100's of them, like a David Attenborough programme, sunbathing, swimming and playing in the sun - It was a real privelage to see them and for Sam this surpased Macchu Picchu as his new favourite day. We also saw penguins, baby penguins and starfish.

After an hour or so it was time to head back through the desert and I think it's fair to say that me and Will were a bit nervous about getting lost, especially when the driver pulled out the GPS!!! Everything in the desert looks exactly the same and I have no idea how he navigated us out of there, there are no roads, no signposts, just endless dunes.

When we got back I realised I had a fever and had lots of paracetamol and medicine to combat a nasty cold which has attached itself to me, so I am now going to lie down and rest and try and shake this off.