Paracas Day 2
Day two of our two day holiday started with me having my coldest shower of the summer. Usually when the water is below boiling I can only stick it for one or two quick twirls but seeing as I was with so many people I figured I should be hygienic and stick it. I shivered all the way back into the bedroom ready to break the bad news to Kelly but she just skipped past me into a nice hot shower. Turns out ‘C’ stands for caliente (hot) not cold! Bugger.
After a terrible shower I was determined to have a good breakfast. We went to the nearest restaurant so as to maximize our eating time. But the bread had hardly reached my face when we were shuffled out, time for us to go bird watching out on the Islas Ballestas, known here as the poor mans Galapagos. Being such a small town, the man running the restaurant was also needed to run tours so when we’d all eaten he shut up shop and headed to his next job (he was back again by lunch). The seven of us walked along what looked like a promenade to get to the massive collection of tourists all waiting for their boats. I made a swift dash to the beach which was only a few feet away to try and walk off the dog poo I stood in. But no one was fooled, there is only one reason people quietly dash away form the group here! Our boat was bigger than I was expecting, had around 30 or so people on it. Some of the cameras were so big they should have had their own seats. We zoomed around the islands looking at bird after bird. But, what really made our morning was finding a guy who looked like a young Che Guevara on our boat. He was a dead ringer for him. Aisling and Jenny both spotted him and when they finally pointed out the right guy to me I had to agree. Suddenly all cameras changed directions and our new challenge was to get a photo of him without him noticing. We finally came up with a fool proof plan. We asked Adrian to jump up on the bank when the boat docked and take a photo of the three of us, but really getting young Che. Think he did quite a good job.
The islands were fine if you really like birds. It was Adrian and Kelly’s first time on a boat so I had fun freaking them out. Convinced them more than once that the rocking meant we were about to flip over. We saw penguins, and now know they don’t only live in cold places. Other things we learned on that trip include there being a house out there that one has to be a researcher to stay in, and, some star fish are red. Well worth the €8.
After lunch Jenny, Stephen and Michael set off sandboarding; an exciting sport that is similar to snowboarding, the names suggests the difference. Adrian already decided he didn’t feel like going, so then Kelly wasn’t going to go, so I wasn’t going to go and somewhere along the way Aisling said she wasn’t going either. Then Adrian changed his mind, so Kelly went, and I was back on board and then Aisling. Wow we’re mature!
At €25 our trip was at the upper end of snowboarding excursions. I’d read that one can rent a board and work away for $1 an hour so I was wondering what sort of golden boards we must be getting for that price.
We weren’t disappointed. We got picked up in a silver people carrier that was just for the four of us and lunched on bananas and chocolate for the hour drive to Huacachina. Now, there aren’t many places in this world that I’m absolutely dying to go to, but Huacachina was definitely one of them. Ever since I saw the photo of the tiny oasis in the middle of the desert in the 2005 edition of Lonely Planet it’s been the place I’ve most wanted to see. When these lads said that’s where I was off sandboarding I could barely sit still in the car. I’d presumed I wouldn’t have time to get there on a two day holiday because bus journeys are so damn long here.
I didn’t recognize my oasis when we first got there. All I could see were wooden shacks where the tour operator worked and some buildings. I asked a few people where Huaca was and they just pointed in the direction of the sand, not very helpful in the desert.
We were brought to our dune buggy, put on our attractive goggles and headed into the big mass of sand. I was somehow left the front seat and regretted it a few times. We took off at a crazy speed with a nice young guy called Caesar, who likes to drive with his eyes closed. We went up over the dunes and flew down the other side. It was like a massive rollarcoaster. Some of the drops down the other side were almost 90 degrees, one had to be at least 87 or 88. Caesar kept accelerating the whole way down. Once I started feeling confident he started doing the same thing only at an angle so we were up on the side. I felt incredibly sorry for lying to the others when I said it was perfectly safe and people never get hurt when I really hadn’t a clue what I was talking about and we were in all likelihood going to get hurt (word on the street is that two people died doing this the next day – but I didn’t see it in the news). I kept thinking if another buggy came over the same hill we were screwed!
Eventually we stopped for photos but soon enough were off again sailing across the sand dunes. I decided to be polite and offer the others my front seat, Adrian obliged. When we reached the top of one particularly steep dune Caesar stopped, handed us the boards and seemed to expect us to go down that crazy dune, on our bellies no less. I was just about to protest about how absurd that would be when I saw Aisling lie down head first and push off down the dune.
Aisling kept getting smaller and smaller as she sped off further down the hill until eventually the black dot waved back at us to indicate she’d made it alive. I quickly gestured Adrian forward to go next and we had a little scuffle over it but he agreed to let me hang on a bit while I contemplated the whole thing. There just didn’t seem to be anyway to stop or slow down. The ‘using your feet as a brake’ thing didn’t make sense to me. Adrian, probably not wanting to look wimpy in front of his girlfriend got down, tucked his arms underneath his body and Caesar pushed him off in the direction of the dot below. He screamed a lot more but by the movement of the second dot below I could tell he’d also survived. Looking at Kelly I knew there wasn’t a hope of convincing her to step up to the plate next. I walked over to Caesar and asked him to repeat the instructions, wanted to be absolutely sure I made it through this. Seemed pretty simple, lie on board, arms tucked in, legs out the back as breaks.
Well it didn’t quite work out like that. Caesar got a hell of a lot of abuse for trying to help me off my launch pad. I did not want to be pushed down that thing. My arms stayed intact for about 2 meters, after which they were over my head trying desperately to slow myself down. My arms didn’t take too well to being in a position they shouldn’t and kept going further and further into the sand. Only my head was keeping my shoulders above the surface. My legs were cramping up trying desperately to dig into the sand. Caesar kept yelling at me to move my arms but at that stage I couldn’t have moved them even if I had wanted to. My body was going fast but my arms were dragging slowly in the sand. And I was still going faster than I’d wanted to. Then the middle of my body started to cramp up. I think part of me wanted to wet myself while the other half remembered my age. I eventually bumped along to the end of the dune where Aisling and Adrian were waiting to cheer me in. The only words I could muster were “I think I broke a kidney”.
In all my worrying about myself I had forgotten Kelly was still at the top of the dune. I jumped from the sand and started yelling to her about how easy it was and how much fun it would be. After a lot of coaxing Caesar finally pushed her off. I decided then we should really tip that guy well.
We took off to some other spots in the desert stopping twice more for sandboarding and once to visit a little oasis, even smaller than Huacachina (but it didn’t have a lagoon). Aisling got terribly excited when she found an Incan road. On one of the runs I got a pants full of sand and Adrian came running over to photograph my ‘man muscle’. It sure looked like one. That was big news for a while.
After another terrifying trip through the desert Kelly casually said “Oh there’s Huacachina”. Everything went into slow motion. It was even prettier than I’d expected. I could fit the entire place into the screen of my digital camera, it’s that small. There’s a lagoon in the middle with a few buildings around the side and that’s it. What a cool place!
We got into Huacachina with only 20 minutes or so before our shiny silver car was due to drive us back to Paracas. We took loads of cheesy tourist shots and I picked out where I would like to work and where I would live, even met a cool jewellery seller I decided I could be friends with.
On the way home we stopped in Ica to use the ATM. I was glad we’d asked the driver to take us there because a few weeks later it was ruined by the earthquake. 80% of the buildings there were destroyed. And Adrian’s extended family who live there are now homeless. I’m still waiting to hear what has become of Huacachina.
Tags: 2 - Peru, Huacachina, Ica, Paracas, sandboarding
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