Out of Lima

For the first time since I arrived here, I can write you from some other place than the Lima Metropolitan Area. It was time to get away from grey and depressing Lima, get some sun, and see a different part of the country. Therefore, Johanna and I decided to go on a weekend trip to the region of Ica, about 4 hours south of Lima.

Saturday morning Johanna’s boyfriend Richard came with us to Javier Prado bus station, where we bought a bus ticket that would take us 400km south, to the bus terminal of Ica. We had to dig deep into our financial resources to come up with the required amount of an impressive and current account depleting S./22,- (that’s about 5 euros). We went with Soyuz, one of the cheaper companies. For those of you wondering about that name, it was not a rocket-propelled bus and we did not go into space either.

The trip to Ica was quite boring. The landscape did not change, so we were still in the desert, and the same film was played three times. Upon arrival in Ica a taxi offered his services for a reasonable price, and he told us about the different hostel options in Huacachina. We took the first one, which was going to cost us S./20 per person (that’s about 5 euros too!). Of course the room only had two beds, and for the shower we had to walk a couple of meters, but we didn’t really need anything else.

Huacachina is a tiny village of probably around 30 buildings, of which there are very few that are not related to tourism. According to Wikipedia this metropolis has a population of 115. It is build around a small lake, surrounded by dunes. It’s a perfect place to chill out for a day, especially for the inhabitants of Ica, that can get there in a 10 minute drive. The most active thing you can do over there, is going on a dune buggy trip and sandboard on the way, so that is exactly what we did. Whereas the first dune was quite low and allowed us to walk back up ourselves, the three subsequent ones were so high that the buggy had to pick us up. Both the buggy ride and the sandboarding had a lot of screaming connected to it. The Austrian guy that came with us let everyone in Ica province know how much he liked it when we hit a curve. Every five seconds Johanna thought she was about to die. At the end we joined a couple of other buggies on a dune top to see the sunset, which was a nice view.

After dinner we decided to go to bed early, since we had to get up at 5.30 to get to Pisco in time for a boat trip to the Islas Ballestas. Unfortunately a group of Americans decided to make a campfire just outside our room, and put their music really loud. When by 2am they hadn’t gone to sleep yet, I went outside and asked if they could lower the volume a bit. The Americans blamed the barkeeper, and said they didn’t speak Spanish so they couldn’t ask. After talking to the barkeeper, the volume was lowered… a bit. After hours of loud music and drunk Americans trying to get a Peruvian high school drop out to talk about international politics and Obama, the music finally stopped and I could get a clean one and a half hours of sleep.

The next morning we went to the bus terminal to get to Pisco, where we would be picked up by a guy that reserved tickets for the boat trip for us. The 100km cost us S./4,-. By now you should be able to calculate yourselves how much that is in euros. Indeed ‘Fred’ was waiting for us. The day before he had talked about his ‘office’, so we expected a small professional enterprise. When he opened up the door of a shack, we saw one desk with a computer on it, and a mattress with two sleeping kids. Nonetheless the tickets were there, and so were our bus tickets for the way back. After Johanna got the entire city to frown or laugh after putting ketchup on her fried egg (I don’t get it either), it was time to get into the boat. It was still cold and the wind blew right in my face, so during the entire trip I did not feel sleepy at all. The guide was supposed to be bilingual, but I am really happy he repeated his story in Spanish after giving English a shot. That way I could understand.

The trip first took us to the Candelabro de Paracas, a huge image drawn in the sand of a coastal hill. Like the Nazca lines, no one really knows what it means, why it is there, or who made it. One theory states it is an image of a local cactus used by an ancient culture for medicinal use. Another theory says the image was drawn in the 19th century as a celebration of the liberator San Martin’s arrival in Peru, not far from that point. Whatever the correct explanation may be, it is an interesting sight. After that it was all about animals and rock formations, and one important natural resource.

The islands are home to an incredible amount of birds. Thousands and thousands sit on the rocks and fly through the air, and all islands are covered in the result of birds doing #2. The bird droppings are gathered every couple of years, because they are the best natural fertilizer in the world. Back when chemical fertilizers did not exist yet, this ‘guano’ caused wars (remember the War of the Pacific?). Other than massive amounts of birds, we saw sea lions, dolphins, and even penguins! It was nothing extremely spectacular of course, but still a lot of fun.

When we came back it was my time to order a fried egg. Thanks to Johanna tourists now have the reputation to eat their eggs with ketchup, so I had to kindly decline the offer made by the waitress. Before we knew it we were picked up by a van that would take us to the Paracas National Park. In the bright sun we walked from the small visitors centre to a flamingo sighting point… where we saw the flamingo’s fly far away from us. So far for great photo’s. The guide, that was just as bilingual as the previous one (that’s sarcasm), probably was more disappointed than anyone else. The next two hours were all about driving at 20km/h over unpaved roads and seeing the same rock formations time and time again. What I had expected to be the highlight of the tour, an interesting cliff with a nice rock formation known as the ‘cathedral’, was destroyed in the 2007 earthquake that wrecked havoc in the entire province. Nonetheless we could make some pretty nice pictures.

After a lunch in a tiny village in the middle of the national park, we headed back to Paracas, where we had about an hour of sun left. On the way back Fred had booked us a seat with Cruz del Sur, probably the best and most expensive operator in the country. For the first time in my life I had about 20cm space between my knees and the seat in front of me (instead of having the passenger in front of me complain that I’m ‘kneeing’ him in the back), and we even got meals served from a guy that could have worked in an airplane. It was probably the most comfortable bus trip ever, so the 3 and a half hours to Lima were quite allright. In the end it was an awesome trip to get away from depressingly grey Lima for some sun…

P.S. Since photo space is limited, I recommend entering in facebook to see the pics!