Woke up early, pumped to begin traveling throughout Peru. Following a 5 hour bus ride I arrived in Ica, a small desert city in the Pisco region. The city itself is not especially intersting but is a hub for activities in the surrounding area. While I have become a master of navigating the huge city of Lima, trying to find a hostel in tiny Ica proved to be much more difficult than I had anticipated.
For the 4th I met up with a friend and visited Huacachina, an oasis surrounded by restaurants, bars, and hostels that is home to many bohemian tourists. The main attraction of Huacachina is the nearby sand dunes which surround the oasis city. After an intense dune buggy ride we arrived at the first large dune where we sand boarded and were handed a piece of plywood with two velcro straps for our feet, a recipe for disaster! Sand boarding is very similar to snowboarding, but the falls are much softer and temperature is much warmer. It was a weird feeling to be sweating, wearing shorts, and strapping on a makeshift snowboard. The first slope was challenging to climb, and had about 4 falls on the way down while I adjusted to the differences between snowboarding and sand boarding. Each dune we visited is larger and steeper than the last, and by the time we reached the final slope the sun was just setting, creating a beautiful backdrop to our sport. 
The final dune was huge and really steep, but by now I was really getting the hang of it. I start going down, fast, really fast...I am feeling pro at this point...then suddenly, midway down and at full speed, this happened:
So my board spontaneously disintegrated which sent me into an EPIC wipeout, cartwheeling down the rest of the slope. If only I had a go pro so I could share this experience with you! Regardless of some scrapes and a sweet battle scar, it was an incredible experience and really fun.
Ica really did not have to much to offer as far as research goes, along with the next few stops I only stopped in for a short period of time to break up the long bus ride to Arequipa. Following Ica I visited Nazca, home of the famous and overwhelmingly misunderstood Nazca lines. This city, like Ica, had very little to offer other than its only attraction. I arrived in the morning, visited the Nazca line viewing tower (which allows for a view that only gives you an idea of the grand size of the lines that create various images), and was on a bus to Arequipa by sunset. While this was not the most interesting part of my trip, it was entertaining, but overwhelmingly touristic which takes away from the charm I found in the many districts of Lima. I am very excited for the next part of the trip, only hearing raved reviews of Arequipa "the white city".
No comments:
Post a Comment