Ica y Paracas

This weekend’s trip was another great one filled with sunshine and exciting adventures. Once again, I only wish we had more time! About a four hour bus ride took us from Lima to the department of Ica, which is a desert coastal department in Southern Peru. We arrived at the Huacachina Oasis to ride dune buggies and sand board which at first I was not all that excited about for whatever reason. However, when we got off the bus and I felt the perfectly sunny 75 degree weather, I decided it didn’t really matter what we did that day, I was going to love it. We were told “no need to bring anything!” as we all jumped into dune buggies, buckled our seat belts and were excited about doing whatever it was we were doing even though I think few of us even had a clue… We started driving and I was almost instantly reminded of the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland. With the sound of the cutting engines and then the jostling of the buggy that turned into an all-out insane adventure ride brought to us by our awesome driver. It was soooo much fun. I was in the back with Kyle and Kristen and we were just laughing, laughing and laughing our heads off, with others screaming and some waving their hands in the air, when really all I wanted to do was hold on for dear life! It was pretty crazy. We eventually stopped, hopped out at the top of a giant sand hill, and were handed boards. They said, lay down, elbows in, legs apart and pushed us down the hill. It reminded me a lot of sledding except dirtier (covered in sand…) but slightly less dangerous feeling. I don’t think wiping out in sand would hurt as much as snow or worse, ice. It was really fun the only disappointing thing was we only did three sand hills… so I didn’t get to do it very many times, but I think I enjoyed the buggy ride the most anyways!

We got back to the oasis entrance area and had lunch, I tried a little bit of everything we had, chicha morada for drinking, appetizers and arroz con pollo and sopa seca. After we ate, we got on the bus to return to our hotel where we were to have free time for the rest of the day. We arrived at the hotel around 3pm and I am thinking “what on earth are we going to do all day?” but, upon entering the grounds, we discovered there was a TON to do. I swam in the pool, went on the water slide and then did some more sand boarding on the hotels giant sand dune in the back   of their lot! We also went on the playground and enjoyed some extremely comfortable swings! There was a gold course, horseback riding, karaoke, and tons more to do. It was a really pretty hotel. When dinner time rolled around, a few of us grabbed a taxi and said, “take us to somewhere good to eat” which he did, but we pretty quickly concluded was too expensive. We then spotted a place called ‘Mango’, which looked like a fruit stand with a little more to offer. We ate some delicious sandwiches and I had my first chicharrón sandwich in Peru and I was in heaven! After that we meandered and purchased some dessert and sweet wine and headed back to the hotel for a relaxing night.

Sunday morning we awoke to an amazing hotel breakfast buffet. A chef at the grill to make to order omlettes, there was also maybe 10 different types of bread including chocolate croissants, there was French toast, tamales, an array of meats and cheeses, a cauldron of delicious hot chocolate and many more things. The hot chocolate here is so interesting. It has this slight hint of chai every time I drink it, but whenever I ask how it is made, they always tell me “chocolate and milk”. So I think I have concluded that the type of chocolate they use for hot chocolate must just be slightly different then whatever we use at home but I just cant place it yet. Its chai-esqe…

Anyways… after that paragraph on food… we got on the bus to go to Paracas, a coastal town where we boarded large motor boats to head out to see the Islas Ballestas. These islands had lots of sea lions, lots of penguins. Lots of birds and mostly importantly-lots of bird poop! It was really interesting to see these guano islands after I and a few other of my friends in the program, have learned about the guano boom in Peru in our History of Peru class. The use of this bird poop as a fertilizer and economic stimulus for the Peruvian economy in the middle of the 19^th century is a very important piece of Peruvian history but was also just very, very smelly. After taking way too many pictures of sea lions and birds, we headed back to shore to have a delicious lunch and do some shopping in the outside markets. We then took the bus back to cloudy Lima to continue our lives here!


Pictures can be found in my Facebook album here:Pictures of Ica y Paracas!