Day Five

It`s the moon .... interesting?


The sand dunes from the dune buggy.
Huacachina


Day five .. not sure I´ll be able to keep up a day count for too much longer though, you know how hard it is to recall individual days past the number of fingers on two hands.

Anyway, Ica may well be the last place in Peru we go to which isn´t tailored to the tourist market. As soon as we got to Huacachina then all the hustle and bustle was gone, it was very quiet and peaceful. The prices were suddenly correspondingly higher but hey. The initial impression was lovely, an oasis surrounded by large sand dunes etc. After walking around the lake several times and venturing up a smaller sand dune (one step up, 90% of a step back down) then you quickly realise you´ve ticked most of the boxes the place has to offer. Perhaps we´ll lose the rush rush mentality of the two week holidaymaker ... but then probably not.

The hostel (a hotel with less than 50 rooms is a hostel) was full of scary ´dude´ like backpackers all looking individually identical, these were the hardcore backpackers that seemed to be settled in for six months or so and seemed to spend days not selling jewellery on the pavement etc. It was a relief to find some Aussies for some normal humour and conversation (and the only other backpackers so far who can´t speak Spanish like a native). On the Wednesday we did nothing much, on Thursday we went on a dune buggy and sandboard trip for two hours.

The sandboarding was fun .. it´s as scary as you want it to be as, as soon as you start getting out of control or too fast, you can crash without consequence. The braver few got out of control and stayed upright and consequentially got a round of applause for the drama of the inevitable wipeout. The slopes weren`t the as they were pretty dramatic, but it was all good.

The dune buggying was excellent. Where there´s no preoccupation withhealth and safety then there´s always a little extra edge and thethree buggy drivers just seemed to be making it up a bit and having alaugh. The routes they took were all quite standard (from the tracks that were still there) but it was the danger that we´d be driving straight into each other at good speeds over the blind vertical drops that was most interesting.

We left Huacanchina immediately after the above (still emptying sand from everywhere) back to Ica then onto a local bus to Nazca, which is where we are now. I´m not sure if we´ll be flying over the lines, it´s$45 each which, with the good exchange rate, is manageable. I´m not sure we will courtesy of all the dodgy scam tour organisers, so although we´ve put down some money already (for reservation etc) then we´ll see whether we ever see that tour organiser or the flight again. I´m hopeful still, but if not we´ll have to trash the hotel room in petty revenge!

We have a night bus outta here on Saturday night to Arequipa. Hopefully this route will make sense, but only so long as the Bolivian border is open when we get there. At the moment it´s still shut apparently, but getting better all the time. Arequipa is close to the home of ´the worlds deepest canyon´ (blah blah) and there are definite sightings of condors circling (at 1130 each day in time for the tourist bus and so long as Pedro can wave the daily meat around in time (cynical allegations)). Arequipa is in a beautiful valley at the foot of El Misti volcano - a snow capped perfect cone (it says in the book). It´s another world cultural heritage UNESCO something or other so it should be nice and there are a few things to do it seems.The plan so far is to train it from Arequipa to Cusco, and by doing this route we cut down on the 14hr bus journeys we could otherwise be facing (to Arequipa is just the nine hours, but it´s on a luxury bus so should be OK).

We´ve met sufficient people now to believe that Peru is OK but expensive and a little hard work, Bolivia is really cheap and not hardwork at all (just the downside of the small revolt and closed borders), Argentina is everyones favourite (or perhaps only second to Bolivia) place and also very cheap, Chile is very pretty but the most expensive. No (insert hyphen here) one has been to Uruguay that we´ve spoken to, so we may have to form an opinion of our own.

Damn, just ticked over the hour. That´s another seventeen pence down. Para hoy, we´ll pop to see some rarified mummies at the museum, and this afternoon we´re off to a planetarium where afterwards they´ve got some ´sophisticated´ telescopes where we can gaze at planets. Tomorrow morning we hope to be in a small aeroplane looking at tenuous ´lines´of birds etc with a boss eyed pilot (who was wheeled in for credibility).