Day 3 - Paracas to Huacachina

No matter how much you did today, we did way more, including going miles out into the ocean to a marine preserve to see penguins, endangered birds, and sea lions, all before our first cup of coffee. Then a desert, a long drive to a crash course in making pisco (and drinking pisco) then another long drive through holiday traffic while sleeping off the pisco to a second desert with enormous sand dunes and an oasis. The best part of today is that we don’t have to get up for anything tomorrow morning, so please don’t call before 10.

Our day started well before 7 am when we hopped on a boat and rode out to the Bellestas islands to see a variety of endangered and non-endangered wildlife. These Humboldt Penguins, which are a “vulnerable” species, only exist off the western coast of South America, are apparently terrific swimmers but they are ridiculous walkers. I’m sure they have a lot to be proud of but, not judging here, it’s hard to respect them once you’ve seen them walking single file down a rocky slope looking like a bunch of slightly drunk high school students trying to look sober.

Then the sea lions, where 2 or 3 big bullies fight each other for dominance on one small rock while hundreds of little cormorants watch from the rocks above, entertained by the drama but always ready to fly away just in case the sea lions come to an agreement and decide to eat birds for breakfast, similar to what is happening in our current politics.

Then a trip to the first desert of the day, where the sand meets the sea but not in the way you typically see sand meeting sea. We are told that this is the only place in the world that has desert, sea and penguins all in the same place. True? I have no idea.

Skipping for a moment the pisco fermentation class, we then hit Huacachina, the land of enormous sand dunes with an oasis in the middle. Our little group of 5 decided to walk up to the top of one, but in the end I was the only person who wanted to keep going so we stopped part way up and then sat in the sand to watch the sun set. 

This is the oasis, which our hotel room overlooks. 

As the temperature dropped, the wind picked up significantly to the point where I felt like I was an extra in Lawrence of Arabia and the sand pummeled us to the point where despite taking a shower I am still pulling sand out of my hair, teeth and other places I don’t feel the need to specify. 

  

Day 2 - Lima to Paracas

 

Today we got up at 5 am to grab a bus from Lima to Paracas, a small beach town a few hours south. We drove on the Pan-American highway, the road that connects the southern tip of South America with Alaska and, unlike the last time I was on this road, I didn’t almost die (long story). 

If you want to go north or south anywhere around this part of the world, the Pan-American highway is
the only option, so there are lots of food stands, gas stations and car repair shops along the way. Not that one would choose to eat the food or get a car repaired there, but sometimes you have no choice. It’s either that or the Great Inca Road, which having been around since the 15th century seems to have stood the test of time slightly better than the Pan-American highway but would be a little rough on a Toyota suspension.

We stopped at a restored plantation out in the middle of nowhere, where in the 17 and 1800’s a family got extremely wealthy producing sugar. Just kidding, the family only sold the sugar; slaves produced the sugar. 

The tour guide, perhaps in an effort not to offend anyone, talked about the whole slave thing with the same passion one might use ordering an ice cream sandwich. Like “the family used African slaves because the Aztec slaves got sick,” leaving out the part about how the conquering Spaniards introduced diseases here that completely wiped out the native population. I have many more examples, but why focus on that when I can focus on

 . . . more ceviche.

Side note, if you are ever trying to find me in another country, just walk around and look up until you find a hotel balcony with one or more damp t-shirts that smell like shampoo, drying in the sun. That’s my room.

We had a delightful time hanging out on the beach and the little promenade. I even ran into two people from Spain and we chatted away as if I were also from Spain. As Martha says, these kind encounters seem to trigger my dopamine receptors, which is her way of saying that I enjoy doing it.

Tomorrow we get to sleep in until 6, at which point we jump on a boat and go see some sea lions.

Day 1 - Lima

Our Lima hotel is in the Miraflores neighborhood, which is safe, colorful, full of restaurants and very close to the ocean. After walking around a little, we touched base with the friends from Germany we are meeting here. They were at the Central Market and we made plans to meet up there. 

At the reception desk of the hotel, I asked if they could call us a cab to take us to the Central Market and showed it to her on a Google map. She gave me a “are you sure you want to go there?” look but then called a cab. When the cab showed up, I pointed to the location on my Google map. He gave me a similar look and off we went.

As we travelled, our surroundings got progressively grimier and more impoverished, and Martha and I started to give each other that same look. It didn’t help that a few minutes from the market while we were stuck in gridlocked traffic, a guy stepped off the sidewalk and peed right next to our cab because the cars offered a little privacy. And then we were at our destination. I asked the driver if it was safe and he said (I am translating here) “Yes. More or less. At least at this time of day. But be careful.” And then I realized that because Lima is so enormous there are many "Central Markets" and we were probably at the wrong one and all of a sudden Martha and I missed our Miraflores neighborhood with its safe, colorful surroundings. So without getting out the cab, back we went.

We got some coffee, 

spent the afternoon walking along the ocean 

. . .and had some terrific ceviche. 

In the evening we finally met up with our friends and wandered around the art-heavy Barranco neighborhood and then remembered that other than a few naps, we'd been awake for more than 36 hours and had been wandering around since more or less 4 this morning. That realization pretty much ended our first day. Tomorrow, up at 5 am and off to Paracas.

Peru Day .5

 At 4:00 am, the lights of Lima, Peru in the distance look like a blanket of shimmering stars, almost pretty enough to make you slightly less unhappy about being up at 4:00 am. Which I am because of a cumulative 8 hours of flight delays between Washington and Peru. The delays were caused by, depending on who I asked, unexpected weather either last night or this morning, in either Florida or Boston, crew shortages caused by weather or just generic weather. “Weather” is the magic word that removes any responsibility of an airline to provide compensation.

On the bright side, it provided the the chance for me to enjoy a $17 veggie wrap from the airport snack bar while we were sitting at the gate waiting for other planes to take off before us. As they explained, the planes that are on time get to leave first so that they can maintain their “on-time” stats. Planes like mine, which were already hours late, don’t get penalized for being even more late. The pilot got on the intercom and said that he would do everything he could to “make up for some lost time.” Which I’m pretty sure the laws of nature prohibit when a two-hour flight leaves four hours late.

Now that I have that out of my system, on with the trip.