kfox

Sandboarding down sand dunes in Huacachina

So, the last time I left off describing my trip, Amy and I had just finished up a tour of Paracas National Reserve and seen desert, ocean, and flamingos from afar. Let me start from the next day.

So, the next day, Amy and I took a bus down the coast a bit to Ica. Neither one of us particularly wanted to go to Ica (it´s not a very nice place and has a lot of crime), but our goal was to wind up in Huacachina, an awesome touristy town surrounding a desert oasis a few kilometers outside of Ica. Our plan was to meet up with Sarit, the girl we traveled to Arequipa with, in Huacachina, so Ica was just a stop on the way. The only thing worth mentioning about Ica was that it had bars on most of its windows and it is close to most of Peru´s wineries. Amy and I signed up for a wine tour and didn´t leave our room for the rest of the night.

The next day, our tourguide, a 25 year old manboy named Fernando, came and picked us up at our hostel. From there, he took us to three different wineries. The only one I remember was called Tacama, and the tour was actually a bit boring because it was a Sunday, so we didn´t actually get to watch anyone making wine. The different wines were interesting to taste though. The wine I have found most unique to Peru has to be Vino del Amor, or Wine of Love. This is a very sweet wine that is supposedly so delicious that people drink way too much and then in their sloppy states, make lots of babies. We had multiple people tell us at the first winery (Tacama) that we would fall in love with Peruvian men after drinking this wine and then make lots of babies. Amy and I just kind of smiled at each other uncomfortably. Meanwhile, as Amy got progressively more tipsy, Fernando started flirting with her, probably hoping to be the one that she would fall in love with. I laughed to myself and thought, "If only he knew."

At the second winery, we got a tour of a bizarre building cluttered with giant clay jars of wine and random antiques/ancient taxidermied animals. The man who owned the winery showed us the traditional way of removing the wine from the clay jars by dipping a bamboo stick with a strategically cut hole into the jar...the wine would collect in the bottom of the stick and then he would pour it into a cup for us. He gave us wine, flirted with Amy (ew, he was in his 50s at least) and, when Amy bought two bottles of wine, he gave us free clay shot glasses with the name of the winery on it...sadly I can´t remember the name now, but I do remember thinking that Amy had accidentally charmed two men so far, haha.

At the third winery (which was also a restaurant), another Fernando showed Amy and I how pisco (a liquor made from grapes) is made. Basically, the grapes are collected in a shallow pool-like structure and stepped on by a bunch of Peruvians until they are all squishy. The juice is channeled into another pool and then into a series of tubes, where it is distilled. About 50 percent of the liquor is used for drinking, while the extremely potent liquor and the very weak liquor on either end of the batch is mixed together and sold as cleaning alcohol. Amy and I tried a few different types of pisco. At this time, Fernando #2 asked what we were doing that night. We told him we would be in Huacachina and he asked if he could meet us in a discoteca there. We told him maybe to appease him. Then we ate lunch at the winery while also watching the final game of the World Cup (Holland vs. Spain) with Fernando #1. After delicately feeding Amy a piece of chicken off of his fork (it was creepy but she´s too polite to say no) we decided we´d like him to drop us off in Huacachina so we could be rid of him (he actually offered to drive Amy there by herself and come back for me later if I wanted to stay and watch the game...uh oh feeling? I think yes). After much awkward silence, he dropped us off at a hostel in Huacachina and gave Amy his phone number and email address. She died inside and I laughed, even though I secretly wanted to chase him out of the hostel and yell "She doesn´t like boys!!!" Or punch him in the face...either one, haha. Then we went downstairs and watched Spain beat Holland during overtime...well, I watched, and Amy wrote in her journal, looked up occasionally, and asked, "Are they done yet?" My girl is not a sports fan, hehe.

After the game, Amy and I had a small emotional crisis which occupied us until about 9 at night, after which point all the internet cafes were closed. This meant we could not find Sarit, who was supposed to arrive in Huacachina the same day...ooops. Feeling really guilty, Amy and I went to a restaurant whose walls were covered in paintings of fairies and elven creatures and whose occupants were all smoking marijuana. I had heard that it was easy to get marijuana in Huacachina, but I didn´t know they passed it out at restaurants, haha. Anyway, Amy and I tried Peruvian pizza, which is kind of like a giant cracker covered in tomato sauce, then walked around town a bit looking for Sarit, and went home when we were unsuccessful (sorry Fernando #2). Amy got hit on AGAIN by a man who worked in our hostel wearing an orange shirt, and every time we passed by him that night and the next morning (he was wearing the same shirt), he would exclaim, "AMY!" I think it´s safe to say that neither one of us wants to see a Peruvian man ever again.

The next morning, Amy and I hurried frantically to an internet cafe, where we found ten emails in my inbox from Sarit asking where we were and if we were alive. We found out where she was staying, rushed over there, and decided that we liked her hostel better because it didn´t have a creepy man in an orange shirt calling Amy´s name every five seconds. We checked out of our current hostel and moved our things, apologizing profusely to Sarit over and over. She was such a sweetheart about it. :) Our new hostel was also next to the lagoon, which was cool because our old one was not...Huacachina is actually a desert oasis, so it has a small lagoon surrounded by palm trees, hostels, and tourists. And best of all, giant sand dunes!

Amy, Sarit, and I went sandboarding later that day. What that entailed was climbing into a bizarre vehicle called a dune buggy, strapped ourselves into the seats, and holding on for dear life as the buggy drove spastically across the dunes, up and down some hills that definitely looked too steep to be going down, lol. Then once we were all ready to pass out, the driver stopped the buggy and retrieved a bunch of snowboards from the back of it. We rode these snowboards down the sand dunes on our stomachs! From the top of the dune, the steep slopes down looked terrifying, but once you got going, sliding down was really fun. My glasses fell off during one run and snapped in half, but it was still worth it. We also got to watch the sun set behind the sand dunes, which was beautiful...at least, what I could see of it without my glasses, haha. It was definitely one of my favorite parts of the trip so far. Anyway, I have to go now and I will be on the road for the next couple weeks, so I´m not sure how often I´ll be able to update. Much love to all of you and I´ll be back soon.