Julia’s birthday was the 29th of April so we all went back to Spa the Saturday before her birthday and had such a good time dancing the night away there to celebrate. We also went out to eat on her birthday at this Thai restaurant called Siam. The food was a nice change from the same Peruvian dishes we always eat, although I don’t think it compares to Thai food back at home. We girls had also conspired to back a carrot cake with cream cheese icing (Julia’s favorite) without her knowing so we all gobbled that right up for desert, mmm mmm good.
We had off school Thursday, May 1st so 7 of us: Rubie, Abby, Melissa, Jesse, Kevin, Matt and I, left Wednesday afternoon for a trip to Huacachina and Paracas. We took Peru Bus from Lima to Ica and from Ica took cabs to Huacachina, which is lagoon surrounded by an oasis in the middle of the desert. The girls’ room at Hostal Rocha was funny and reminded me of Snow White and the 7 Dwarves because there were seven beds all lined up against the walls with basically no other furniture. We set up a deal that night for the room, along with a morning trip of dune buggying and sand boarding then grabbed a traditional Peruvian dinner at Mayo, a nearby restaurant. Afterward we hung out for a while but the oasis was dark and seemed devoid of a nightlife – there were only the occasional other groups of backpackers out and about. We went back to the hotel to do some night swimming in the pool but everyone but Jesse decided it was too cold to get wet. Instead we decided to climb the sand dune across the road from our hotel and lay out under the stars, which were numerous and glorious – absolutely the opposite of the sky in Lima.
During the day, seeing with depth perception in the desert is really difficult. At night, it’s almost impossible to judge distances, which is why the climb up the sand dune ended up being the most physically strenuous activity I’ve ever done in my life. It was SO much farther to the top than we initially imagined. We ended up having to get on all fours because the incline increased the farther up we went and without being diligent and clinging to the hill with every ounce of strength, one could easily slip back down the slope through the soft sand. We were all also cursing Kevin who scampered up within minutes like some sort of sand mountain goat while the rest of us struggled and suffered. It took probably half an hour to climb this freakin sand dune and by the end I was panting, weak, and drenched in sweat even though the night was cool. Thankfully we all made it to the top of the dune and sat on the ridge, towering above the world. From that height, cars were about the size of a pencil eraser and we could see the shimmering lights of Ica sprawling in the distance. We found out later from one of our guides that the dune is about 1200ft high! We girls sang songs for fun and then we all just laid together under the glittering night sky, feeling totally at peace and mystified by the grandeur of nature. We intended to spend the night out on the dunes beneath the open sky but come 4am we were all huddled together on the cold sand and shivering with each gust of wind so we decided to head back and sleep at the hostal.
The next morning we ate a quick breakfast at the hostal. In the light of morning we realized not only the splendor of the green of the oasis surrounded by towering sand dunes around where we were staying - it was like being in the movie Aladin. We also realized that our hostal was a veritable zoo. There was a monkey tied to a tree, at least three cats prowling around our table, and some beautiful colored parrots gracing the trees in the backyard near the pool. We played with the monkey for a minute, who was quite mischievous and started going for Kevin’s wallet and biting him, then once I was playing with him he jumped down the front of my shirt. You’ve really gotta ask yourself, who trained the little guy? Also once he got on a person he would cling to them with all of his limbs and tail (and with teeth in Kevin’s case) and refused to let go. After the petting zoo we piled in a dune buggy which was a cage-like car that held exactly 7 people, and headed out to the desert. Tearing out over endless expanses of sand under a blazing sun and clear blue sky was an absolutely amazing experience. The true beauty of the desert is lost in our photographs. Much of the subtle variations in color and ridges and undulations in the sand are not registered by my digital camera. Unfortunately, driving over the dunes was less thrilling than I had imagined because our dune buggy was not in good repair and the engine died about ten times in total during the tour. Not a comforting thing to happen when you’re out in the middle desert.
At the first hill we arrived at, we were like, whoa, this is really long and steep! But the guide kept insisting we do one practice round there then go on to the “real dunes”. I was not thrilled to see how big they could get. We were given goggles, boards, and a 30 second demonstration before we had to jump in and try it out. There are two ways to go down the dunes: standing up, sort of like snowboarding, your body facing the dune and your butt facing the bottom while you go down at a slant, or straight down on your belly, which actually seemed a little more terrifying even though you’re laying down because you have no control and go down a lot faster. We all tried going down while standing up and it ended up being difficult, but so much fun! I think I fell down at the bottom every single time except the last time, but the sand was soft and no one got injured, although we were all covered in sand by the end. I even figured out pretty quickly how to control my speed and switch directions. After getting over the initial nervousness of the first time, the hills didn’t seem so scary and we tried out a few different locations. The best thing about having the dune buggy was that once at the bottom of the hill, the guide came to pick us up and take us back to the top because climbing back up every time would have been a nightmare.
Afterward we returned to Hostal Rocha to wash off the layer of sand and cool off from the desert heat in the pool. Then we ate at Mayo again, did a little bit of touristy shopping, and made plans to go camping that night in the desert. We arranged to have two tents and transportation to and from some random location in the desert surrounding Huacachina. A little too late, we realized we had nothing to sleep on, nor any source of light, nor food nor drink so we scattered off to make arrangements and buy supplies. All we managed on such short notice were some blankets, 7 chicken sandwiches in plastic bags, lots of bottled water and one flashlight. So the guys headed out first in a little dune buggy to set up the tents before it got too dark. The girls went next and we got to see the glowing pink orb of the sun set over the dunes and we bumped along through the desert with supplies stacked up to our heads. When we got to the site, which was a little valley nestled between dunes where some people were still boarding, we found that the guys had succeeded in setting up the tents. The only problem was that one tent was a 4-person while the other was the smallest, most pequenito tent I have ever seen in my life. It literally could have only fit one person, so we weren’t sure where we were going to be sleeping that night. Thankfully, the guy who worked at the hostal went out and brought us back another 4-person tent which we worked to set up quickly, before the rapidly setting sun drenched the desert in darkness and made it impossible to see.
We climbed up to the top of the nearest dune to watch the last remnants of color from the setting sun hover over the desert. I decided to try boarding down the dune on my stomach, which was such a rush! When it got dark we sat around in a circle outside and watched the stars emerge out of the twilight. We figured out that we could make a lantern to illuminate our campsite out of our flashlight and a bottle of rum, so we buried the flashlight in the sand facing up and placed the bottle on top which made a perfect glow to see by. We went around and talked about things we were thankful for, then the girls had singalong time again, which I think the guys found excruciating. Then we ran up another dune and were running around tackling each other and just having a good time (maybe I instigated a lot of the tackling) then talking and contemplating the stars while we listened to music on Matt’s Ipod.
The next morning we cleaned up camp and got picked up to go back to Huacachina. Rubie and I had a chocolate crepe and veggie omelets for breakfast – finally food other than fruit and bread with butter and jam! We got showered and headed out to two bodegas, or wineries, which surround Ica and make wine and pisco, a liquor made from grapes. After a tour at Catador, the first bodega, and an explanation of the wine-making process, we had a wine tasting. The guy gave us so many samples that the alcohol started going to my head. I found the wines thick and sickeningly sweet and pisco in general is hard for me to stomach straight, but it was interesting to learn about the different varieties. I guess now I know why Peru isn’t known for their wines… The next bodega, called Lazo I think, was interesting in a different way, It was much more old-fashioned and the tour guide served the samples to us not out of bottles but out of huge ceramic vessels using an altered bamboo stick. It seemed really unhygenic, and it definitely was because at more than one point I found little dead bugs/dirt in my pisco - yuck! The room itself where the wine was stored was like a cluttered garage, except full of oddities and antiquities, many of which dated to pre-Incan times. I was kind of outraged to see pre-Incan fabrics displayed willy nilly on a dusty wall covered in cobwebs, not to mention the ancient human skulls stuck in a niche of one of the walls with a piece of glass partially enclosing them.
NEXT: PARACAS
