trick or treat in the dirty south

i found myself in a bit of a jam after a few days in lima. it sounds like a strange concept, but i had about a week to kill before starting my ¨real¨ travels. without sufficient time to go north to ecuador or south towards bolivia due to the upcoming arrival of ali and my brother and his girlfriend in lima, i was stuck with very few options. i didn´t want to stray too far from lima but needed to get out of the city, so i headed south for huacachina, a desert oasis surrounded by massive sand dunes and located just outside of ica.

the bus ride to ica was amazing. i was the only gringo out of about fifty people (with the exception of an israeli couple in front of me) and we got to watch two really great movies: mission impossible 1 and 2. another thing that you guys should know about south american buses is that they love to show outdated american action movies that are either improperly dubbed or bootlegs that were shot with a video camera inside the theater. fortunately, mi:1 had bad dubbing and mi:2 was shot with a shaky camera, so i got the best of both worlds.

as we finally made our way out of the smog cloud that suffocates lima and its surroundings, the effects of the august earthquake began to appear. at first, there were a few small homes that looked like they had been hit with mortar shells, with debris and rocks scattered around the properties and collapsed roofs. soon, entire towns (the hardest hit were chincha and pisco) began to surface with similar characteristics. it looked like the footage that they show on tv when a bomb goes off in the middle east- all of the buildings were completely destroyed and coated in dust, graffiti was present either asking for prayers or the renunciation of god and the only buildings that were restored were the minimarkets, bars and restaurants that serve tourists. in addition, most households have been temporarily moved into huge red coleman tents, which are also caked in dust and have few sources of ventilation to assist in circulating the dry desert air. it was really sad to see, but i am glad that i had the chance to witness it. i have decided that if i have money left at the end of this trip most of it will go towards getting these villages back on their feet.

i had been told by a couple of british girls that to get to huacachina, you just hop off the bus in ica and take a cab for a couple of kilometers until you arrive at a lagoon surrounded by sand. after a bit of bargaining, i found an adequate ride. as we began the trip to huacachina, the driver asked me if i was in a hurry because he needed to make a couple of stops. i told him that it was okay so long as we headed in the right direction since it was a station wagon and i was the only passenger. before i knew it, we had stopped at a streetside stand (where he grabbed a bunch of unlabeled cigarettes) and picked up a few of his drinking buddies, who were all located in different spots and had their own bottles of homemade booze. the 5 kilometer ride took about 30 minutes and was absolutely hilarious- i learned more slang than i thought possible and was informed about the failed relationships and penchants for hookers that these guys had. after turning down several offers to go out drinking with them (i was still pretty sick at this point), the cab driver finally took me to huacachina.

huacachina is a strange place. it was built in the 1920s as a retreat for lima´s elite class and is basically a tiny man-made lagoon that is located in the middle of a range of sand dunes. the lagoon is surrounded by a few hostels, hotels, restaurants, convenience stores and junk peddlers and nothing else. a typical day involves eating a massive and cheap breakfast ($2 for crepes with fresh local fruit, bread, eggs, fresh squeezed juice, coffee, tea and a yogurt parfait type thing), hiking the dunes before midday (it gets ridiculously hot there), swimming in the pool and sunbathing, going on dune buggy rides and sandboarding down the dunes (sandboards are basically heavy planks of plywood with no edges or flex and velcro bindings), some more relaxation time by the pool or in shaded hammocks or tee-pees, a great home-cooked meal for dinner and then some more hiking, carreteando and sandboarding on the dunes.

for halloween, the only difference that i made to this routine was the incorporation of locally made chocolate. earlier in the week i had befriended a pair of canadian girls and two guys from washington state. we found a local shop that made its own chocolate, rounded up all of the israelis and italians at the hostel and headed for the top of the highest dune, where we had a chocolate feast and a midnight dance party courtesy of a dinky pair of speakers and someone´s ipod. while it certainly did not compare to last year´s festivities in boulder, it was still worthy of being labeled a halloween celebration.

i spent another day in huacachina before making my way back to lima. unexpectedly, the cab ride to the bus station from huacachina was equally as bizarre as the one that i took at the beginning of my stay. after agreeing upon the price (taxis do not have meters here and are notorious for ripping off gringos), the driver went on this rant about how the ride was going to be more expensive because of his assumption that i had more money than him. after trying to explain the concept of cost of living and how with 4 soles (about $1.33) he could get in ica what would cost significantly more in the u.s. (he didn´t follow me on these ideas) we finally reached a new agreement- if we could change the subject and have a different conversation i would give him 5 soles instead of the 3 that we had agreed upon. his idea of this was to explain his exploits with hookers (a bit of a common theme with taxi drivers here) and how i should give my guitar to his friend (who he had picked up and was sitting in the trunk). upon reaching the bus station i tossed him 4 soles and thanked him for the wonderful conversation. he just winked at me and sped off. it was the perfect ending for my stay in such a strange place.