Sandboarding

Overnight tripped it to Ica this past weekend which is about 5 hours south of Lima by bus.  Ica is in a desert and about 20 minutes away are these ridiculously high sand dunes that stretch for miles with an oasis called Huacachina right splat dab in the middle of them.  As soon as we arrived we were loaded into two sand buggies and before we had even buckled our seat belts, our drivers decided to let loose and take us on the equivalent of a sand rollercoaster.  I feel bad for all the people who got motion sick on that trip, but for those of us who don't mind vertical drops it was awesome.  Sand was flying everywhere, we all had sand lining our teeth! To add to the excitement, our guides whipped out a bunch of sandboards....which looks like snowboards except they have rudimentary velcro straps, are chipped all over the place, and look like something out of the Back To the Future franchise.  You lie down on your stomach and lift your legs up, and before you know it you are flying across burning hot sand at about 40 miles an hour.  Sounds safe right? Well a friend and I decided to up it to the next level and try it "parada" style, or standing up (aka how you would ride a snowboard).  I can now officially say that it is wayyy harder to sandboard, then it is to snowboard.  Pretty much no control at all, you basically have to just point your board down and try and stay standing.  We stopped overlooking the oasis to take some pictures, and then headed back because the heat was getting to all of us.  After a big lunch on the lake of Huacachina, we headed to our hotel Las Dunas for the night where we had actual water pressure for our showers...i forgot to mention that in Lima, there is little to no water pressure, so its more of a water drip out of the shower head.  Needless to say, we were so excited to have a real shower again.  We had planned on doing a bar crawl called the "Shitfaced Tour" but opted out of it as it was kind of far away.  But instead of going to bed at a reasonable hour, about seven of us decided to hike up the dune overlooking the hotel at midnight in our pyjamas with some cheap wine and a six pack of beer.  Took us about forty five minutes but the view was spectacular, overlooking all the city lights while sitting on top of a sand ridge.

Early the next morning we headed out on the bus to Paracas and Islas Ballestas, aka the Gallapegos Islands of Peru where we boarded a boat to tour the area.  The islands are formed from natural rock formations which are in the shape of natural arches and are inhabited by penguins and sea lions.  Having taken about a thousands pictures of both of these in Ushuaia, I tried to refrain from being too trigger happy.  While on this happy little boat ride, the entire left side of the boat got pooped on by the condors circling overhead.  The right side of the boat (including me) thought this was hilarious, while the left side's reactions alternated between mild irritation, laughter, and full on angry.  We joked that this was the real "Shitfaced Tour," which they didn't think was very funny.  Ironically, in the 1850's Peru got itself out of major financial issues by exporting thousands of tonnes of bird poop as a natural fertilizer to the US, England, and other places....so I guess it can't be all bad! Disembarking, we headed over to a seaside resaturant where we dined on pulpo (octopus), calamari, and ceviche (raw fish marinated in a lemon citrus juice and served with onions).  All of it so good!

Can't believe I only have 32 days left in South America, where did all this time go?!