A few hundred km north beside the town of Ica, the next destination was Huacachina a little oasis in the huge sand dunes of the lowland dessert. We had picked up the address of a great hostel to camp in with a beautiful swimming pool. Just at the back of the hostel was a 400m high sand dune famous for its sand boarding. Excellent.

     We spent 4 days there being accompanied at one stage by a Swiss couple with a blue Landy and baby child in tow (born 5 months prior while on the trip in Ecuador) and then a young Dutch couple in a van whom have driven all the way from Canada. We did the dune buggy tour which was awesome, sometimes going up and coming down dunes near vertical. We had so much fun although Kerry had fairly white knuckles throughout. More sand boarding was enjoyed and Kerry even gave it a go - slowly. The dune behind the hostel could only be accessed by walking straight up the side of it. To his credit and enthusiasm, James walked up it 13 times in the 4 days we were there. A few healthy wipe-outs did not go amiss as the photo testifies.

     We reluctantly departed for a 200km drive north to the National Park of Paracas, a sand dune, desert Peninsula on the Pacific coast. Although official roads exist, you can literally drive anywhere on the sand dunes but as is typical for the area the wind is very very strong and almost blows consistently 24hrs a day. An afternoon driving all over the place we located an excellent secluded camp spot surrounded by high sand dunes, overlooking a beautiful sheltered bay on a small 10m high sand cliff.

     Lima was the next stop where James was hoping to visit a South American Bird of Prey breeding set up near Lima. After agreeing to break our camping stretch as a treat for our anniversary we checked into a very nice and clean hostel in the suburb of Baranco. We spent the evening with a local contact, Martin and his girlfriend and the following day Martin accompanied us first thing in the morning to the breeding setup.

     It surpassed all of James' expectations, a huge set up of about 50 breeding pens including Bat Falcons, Peregrine Falcons, Aplomado Falcons, Eagles and Hawk Eagles of the Amazon Jungle. Jose Antonio, the owner who showed us proudly around has a lot of success breeding many of these species and probably has the biggest collection of these in the world. James' new favourite bird is an Orange Breasted Falcon, only found in the jungles of South and Central America, of which Jose Antonio has a few breeding pairs.

     Jose Antonio then casually mentioned that he had a falconer friend in Lima who is actually hunting an Orange Breasted. He gave us Oscar's phone number. That was it, James was beaming from ear to ear and would have waited a month to see the bird. After phoning Oscar, who fortunately spoke very good English, he said he was flying the bird the following day and we were welcome to join. Another friend would accompany us who was flying a Peregrine falcon. Okay now James fell asleep smiling.

     After agreeing to meet at 7am the following morning, we would take Lodzi with us on the 100km drive to the hunting ground. Enroute Oscar took us to visit a few local Peregrine nests where we spotted 11 wild Peregrines in all, more in one day than James has seen in the whole of South America.

     Pedro flew his Peregrine first at some Pacific doves that were unfortunately suddenly very scarce and very wily. A couple of exciting stoops, one near miss and the Peregrine finally caught the pigeon released! Oscar then flew his female Orange breasted falcon. She waited on for about 10 min, being out of position when we flushed the only two wild doves we could find. In position, Oscar released a pigeon which she put in a very quick stoop but would not take it head on, as the pigeon dived into a nearby tree she ploughed straight in after it and the game was over. James is still smiling at the moment.

     We drove back into Lima in the evening and booked back into the hostel. Kerry spent the following day between bed and toilet with a major upset stomach. Our first really bad stomach bug in 7 months of travelling. Not bad we figured.

     Well we are still in Peru over a month on since our last up date and loving it. Although very expensive for our budget, there is so much to see and do we are finding it hard to move on quickly. The weather this time of year is very dreary in Lima, and although not cold it is grey and misty by the coast all day every day so we plan to head North and inland to the mountains again for clear skies.