The Flight of the Condor

We left Arequipa the next morning heading to the town of Chivay, near Colca Canyon. A smallish tour bus was our ride for the 5 hour trip. Most of it was on good roads but the last 1½ hours was full of pot holes, rocks strewn about and sand traps, not recommended for a motorcycle. The bus barely managed in some spots. The rivers across the road were small and the water level low but I can see them in my mind’s eye as roaring streams, too. We had a guide for this trip and we understood his Spanglish well enough.
On a side note, the people of Peru, when they speak English pronounce it badly. I have heard other Latinos speak English but Peruvians have a hard time with English pronunciation.
We had several stops on the way; at one stop we saw vicunas, llamas and alpacas. On another stop we could clearly see the surrounding volcanoes. The volcano Misty looked like true cone shaped volcano. Pichupichu (Mountainmountain) was immense. Chachani, the other snow caped giant was impressive as well. All are active volcanoes, ready to go off when needed.
Our trip went steadily uphill. At the highest point (4910 meters or 15,000 feet) one person in our group fainted when we left the bus to take pictures. Her skin was white like paper and she was given oxygen. Many of us were feeling light-headed. We piled quickly back on the bus and descended 1100 meters to the town of Chivay, for the rest of the night.
This altitude is not easy on the human system. I walked a few steps and puffed like I had run 100 yards. My blood receives 1/3 less oxygen at this height and my body is not used to it. After arriving in Chivay we had a cup of Matte de Coca and after some time visited the local hot springs. We soaked in the 38 Degree Celsius city pool and after 15 minutes of that felt a bit better yet walking was still laborious. For the rest of this day we just hung out, walked around the town square a bit, and looked at the local population. We were in the land of the Inca. Everywhere we looked, Inca. The church was of the Spanish Colonial style but fairly plain. We had a late dinner during which we were entertained by a local band playing local folk music. A husband and wife danced for us and gave us a glimpse in dance form of the traditions around here. A bit shocking was the physical abuse shown in dance form. We had enough for this day and now living at 3800 meters, our bodies craving oxygen, we retired for this day.
The following morning we were up at 6 AM and on our way for another 2 hour ride to the Condor Sanctuary. The bus driver was good, he knew the way and he could handle his bus. The road built along the rim of the Colca Valley is wonderful, showing us true Inca life. There were smallish farms with terraced fields. What makes the road tough is its remote location. This road is creeping, twisting, descending in its most primitive form thru beautiful Inca farm land, hugging the mountains. To the right are steep drop offs, some 1000 meters. No rails. The surface is maintained but sandy with rocks. Lucky for us the washboard effect was not too bad, we rumbled along without being jarred.
At one point we entered a long tunnel, carved just wide enough for the width of one bus. During the whole 3 or 4 minutes it took to pass through, I wondered how the driver could see or worse, drive the bus in these conditions. Dust from previous vehicles was swirling around the whole cavity of the tunnel. Even though the bus had its lights on, visibility was zero. It was like driving into a sandstorm. I could only see the sidewall for about 2 feet in front of the bus, the rest was yellow, gray. No way could you see a vehicle in front of you. Forget about having trouble and breaking down inside this tunnel, you are a dead man. Forget about being on a bike. I have no idea how deep the sand was or how soft the sand was but what does it matter, nobody can ride a bike in such conditions. And…. forget about oncoming traffic, you cannot see them. And if you could see them what would you do? It is impossible to pass since the road is so narrow. What a road. We finally made it to the end and I was relieved to see sunlight. I am sure the locals have a system for using this tunnel but it was scary for me.
After driving for some more time through wonderful farmland in the Colca Valley, farmland that looked ancient, different and a tad strange, too, we arrived at the Condor Cross, the lookout point for the condors, inside the condor sanctuary. The bus halted and we stepped off and immediately felt the sacredness of this place. There were quite a few people at this spot, but nobody talked. Everybody mostly sat and watched and listened to the wind. Here we are in 2010 and such a spot exists. This was not a rehearsal, there was no priest around, there was nobody telling us what to do yet if felt right to be in awe. People sat on rocks, on walls ready for something. Most folks sat in silence. When a condor was visible, all heads turned to look, some pointed but nobody yelled out. At no time did the birds come close to the people, the drop off to the canyon floor is some 3000 meters at this spot and the width on this spot is not that wide. The birds are interested in food only; they glide around, using the morning updrafts created by the canyon walls to make their flying easier. The light at this early hour is still a bit hazy and since the birds profile in flight is very sleek and their coloration blends in so well with their surroundings they are hard to spot; harder yet to photograph.
I took a small telephoto lens and got some pictures but none is really that good. Yet somehow it was not about the photos any longer. The special area, the Inca, the condor, the weather, and the local conditions all coalesced at this event. It was almost a spiritual happening, a world where things are right, where the feeling of ‘this is how it should be’ prevails over other impulses. It was a good trip and I am glad I saw the Condor in flight.

Nazca Lines

Take the early hour flight everyone says so we listened to them and booked the 7 AM tour for the flight over the Nazca Lines, and sure enough an old, dilapidated van was in front of the hotel when we got there at 6.50 AM. The guy had the hood open, checking the engine on the van. He would not let us into the car until 7 AM but as a bonus, we received an involuntary city tour, because he drove thru the city from one hotel or hostel to the next picking up other passengers. Slowly the bus began to fill up. We had to wait at each stop for a group or an individual. Of course, some were late or someone had to call their room or they were not well informed about their pick up time, etc. We waited. Finally we arrived at the airport, were shown the ticket counter, and I gave the woman my flight ticket, purchased the day before right next to the hotel. The airport is only 3 minutes away from our hotel but the time now is 7.40 AM. No wonder they recommend the early flight, it takes them 50 minutes to make a 3 minute trip.
“All is well, thank you”, she said, “Would you mind waiting until our flight is ready? We will call you”. We received a sticker with the company logo to be glued to our breast pockets. Nice sticker, very well done but none of the stickers stuck to anything but paper. They came off no matter what fabric you wore; Carol finally glued hers on the paper brochure we received. I lost mine in no time.
At about 8 AM, after being body scanned with an electronic wand, having camera bags checked etc, like we were at JFK and going unto an international flight, we get on the 6- seat plane. One propeller motor in the center, the wings supported with heavy struts. Not a new plane, but not as old as I imagined. A 3-point harness is a serious hold down and we strapped in. The plane is small inside and to get in one has to step onto footholds, use specific handholds and sit according to best weight distribution, the pilot determines. Our pilot wore a uniform and looked very professional, cap and all, mostly white with navy and gold colored trims. An intercom system, the one you put over your ears, like old fashioned ear phones, did not work well on our plane. It looked old fashioned, probably installed when the plane was built in the 60’s. I used my head set to cover the engine noise. After a short preflight check, off we go to see the lines, the time is 8.10 AM. From pick up to take off was I hour and 20 minutes, from a hotel that is exactly 3 minutes away from the airport.
There are many Nazca lines, so many that it is hard to see what is important, what is not. From the air you can see the large, dry river beds and those interfere with the lines. All of a sudden the pilot points and our necks strain to see one of the famous figures, the whale, we try to get a shot with our cameras, the plane banks at a steep angle and before you know it, we flew over it and are gone. One more fly-over from the opposite direction, banking hard to get a good look and then we fly off to the next stop. This view gives us an assortment of trapezoid, or arrow heads, which nobody can decipher. Most of the figures are faint, in a maze of lines, hard to see. This process repeats itself, the pilot can only point, and he cannot say much because the engine noise is loud. I loved the Astronaut, our next stop. I got a fairly good picture of this guy. A weird looking dude, carved on a very dark hill side so he shows up well. The monkey, dog, condor, spider, frigate bird and hummingbird are next and clustered. I found them hard to see and they are faint and crowded among lines that make it even worse to clearly make them out. I took blind pictures, hoping for the best. I never saw the representation of the tree; I saw the hands only faintly and got a partial picture of the parrot. All in all, the pilot tried hard to get us a good view but it was hard to get good pictures through the double paned windows. He flew the plane well and banked left, right, left again, he did bank steeply almost to a roll, and he did all he could to get us ill, too. He flew as low as he was allowed and gave us a feeling of being a bird. Our stomachs were ok but a fellow passenger turned a bit pale and then some sort of green, yet he kept his stomach contents inside. He was perspiring heavily when we got off the plane about 30 minutes later and he was glad to be on terra firma again.
This is how we saw the mystery of Nazca, the world renowned Nazca Lines. Why did the ancient people make those figures in the mostly dry soil? What do all these lines mean, what are all those figures about? Was Eric von Daniken right in his theory of space aliens? Here, in Peru, we were told by locals that they were deities; that each motif represents a tribal god. A German scientist, Maria Reiche, spent over 50 years of her life, until her death a few years ago, using scientific instruments, satellite photos, the latest technical equipment and help from her friends all over the world, trying to solve the mystery. She leaned Quechan, the old Inca language, she leaned other dialects of the area to she could speak with the native and ancient population. She tried, and tried but she died not finding the answer. Why? Why did the ancients make those lines? What do they mean?
Well I have seen the lines. I have not a clue as to why the ancients made those lines and motifs or what they mean, either! We took some photos, the best we could, crisscrossed the area in a small plane, travelled a huge distance from our home to see these lines, endured some hardships and had our patience tested many times over, only to walk away saying: “ been there, done that “. Was it all worth it? If the Nazca lines are on your bucket list, cross them off your list! You can see more on a post card! You will not solve the mystery either, I am sure of that. But then, once you are in Peru you might as well stop and see them, too, we did. In a way I am glad, I got them out of my system.

Arequipa

We took the night bus from Nazca to Arequipa, sleeping on the bus. Leaving at 10 PM, arriving at 7 AM the next day was a tough night. I cannot sleep well on a bus, no matter what seat I sit in, no seat is made for my height. Even first class seats are only marginally better. All transportation seats are made for Joe Doe, who is 170 lbs, 5.10, with short legs. We got off the bus and again Francis had it down pat, we had a pick up, Jenny was there to take us to our Hostel, Hostel Bolivar. Jenny also arranged for a city tour of Arequipa and a 2-day tour starting the next day to see the Colca Canyon, known as the deepest canyon in the world and which contains a sanctuary for the condors, a bird with a wing span of 3 meters.
There is not much to say about Arequipa, a nice city with a comfortable feel, very clean compared to other Peruvian cities, a city with many buildings made in the Spanish Colonial style and built using volcanic stones (sillar) that are a very light gray, so from far away those buildings look white, hence the name, The White City of Arequipa.
The city tour was disappointing since after spending about 3 hours on a tour bus I can hardly recall a thing. Some of the guides spoke a difficult to understand Spanglish. We saw some areas that were once famous but today contain slums, we saw the house of the founder of Arequipa but the house got lost in the slums surrounding it. Arriving at a point of interest along with 10 other tour buses is not my way of learning something. I hated it. To see a ranch where you can ride a horse and all the horses look mistreated, sickly, and are only skin and bones, is not my thing and I hate it. I did not like the city tour. Arequipa itself is a nice enough town. The city tour is a waste of money and time.
One good and interesting experience, not a part of the city tour but separate experience we did on our own would actually even be better for all my religious friends. We visited a large monastery which still operates today. Young ladies, in the tradition of the Spanish, were given the chance to become nuns and learn the ways of the Catholic faith. Some, after years of indoctrination, took the vow and became Benedictines, others left to become devoted wives to the colonial elite. All this religion was planned and supported in the good Catholic way. I am not religious but I can feel the intense devotion oozing out of this monastery, even today. This monastery is an old building complex, very large, built for many young women but now housing only 18 nuns and novitiates. We saw the Spartan living quarters for the devout and the place is interesting and even a bit romantic in some ways. It was a nice place to visit but I would never want to live this way.

Water, Water, Water

This is the driest area of the world, yet people have lived here for thousands of years. Water comes to this region via rivers, from far away, from the east, from the Andes Mountains. I caught myself standing in the desert watching the high rain clouds drift east, wishing they would unload some of their cargo on me. It does not happen; the moisture collected from the ocean drifts eastward and is only released in the high mountains of the Andes. A system of rivers, above ground and below ground, brings the water back to the ocean. The people here depend on this system.
Some years there is a lot of moisture being carried to the Andes and the rain water collected there comes in the form of flash floods to the towns near the coast. A lot of water can come very quickly, it all depends how much it rains in the Andes. The high mountains of the Andes are too far away so one never knows what will occur, sitting in the middle of the desert. Along the river banks, where the water over millennium has flattened the grounds, farmers eek out an existence. Yes there are rivers, or river beds. Some have permanent water; most of them are dry beds for most of the year. Even the permanent river beds are a mere trickle most of the time. Water is needed, water is needed badly. Even today, in 2010, the people get nervous when there is no visible sign of water coming. Today is February 6th and normally some water has come from the Andes by as early as December. So far, Nazca has not received any water. People keep on looking east. Every time they see dark clouds in the east they predict that water will come soon, so far nothing has happened. So far, as of today there has not been any water in the many river beds. The area is dry; the dry river beds are full of trash. Water is needed.
Yes, there is water below ground, the ancients knew this and there is enough water for drinking but not for more. 1500 years ago the ancients build a canal system, an aqueduct system that still brings water to Nazca today. A few years ago the Government of Peru tried to ‘improve’ the system but found that it is best left alone. The section they tried to ‘fix’ is now silted up and is not productive any longer. The ancients had a way to do it that worked then and still works today. We visited an aqueduct system delivering potable water, which brings the water of life to the farmers nearby. The system works. Huge ‘windows’ were added to the underwater river so that people can go down and collect water. A round access path leads down to a small collection area where the water is scooped up in buckets. This is not a well, this is an access to an underground river and it is not a canal. It is an underground river with access points. The river has been tamed in that it is made to flow faster or slower as needed but it is a river none the less. The sides of the river are lined with head sized rocks and periodically those sides or even the tunnels in between the access points have to be fixed. Yet, look today, the system is still in good condition, it works and it is amazing. Water is secured. Water, the lifeline of the dessert has been accessed and water is put to good use. The ancients knew their stuff. They did not conquer water, did not collect it in lakes which would evaporate here, they let it be where it is but created access points, the locals today call windows, to get what they need the most. Water!
Many believe water is the mystery behind the Nazca culture.

Of Pottery and Gold

So opposed are these items yet each one is such a part of former Peru. The ancients of Peru, up to and including the Incas did not have the use of the wheel. So pottery was made in 2 ways, one was to hole out a lump of clay to make a small vase, vessel or pot and the other was making a cord, a long ribbon from clay and then adding the ribbons to form a wall, the 2nd technique was used for larger containers. On one tour Carol and I visited a small shop where the owner, an artist, makes copies of ancient vases for tourists to buy. He made a small tea pot kind of container for us while we were standing there. Before he started he showed us a glued together vase that was very old and was, without a doubt, ancient. It made me wonder where he got the old vessel from. Was he one of those grave robbers, or worse, a guy who paid someone to loot a grave? Carol understands from our guide that this ancient vase was brought in from a collector for repair of the several cracks and one hole in the side.
On principal I would not have bought a single piece from him even though his work was excellent. The technique he used to make a pot was simple yet elegant. With a lot of handwork, using only natural clays without additives, using pebbles to hone the finished pots, painting each object with fine brushes and finally firing them in a small kiln in the corner of his yard he produced a fine pot. He had a small gallery in a shed and would have taken Visa. Carol and I passed on his art. Later, thinking about it and discussing his shop I was under the impression that this was just a front for a larger atelier of artists that the man was not real, his props were all true, and his set up perfect but I had my doubts that he produced this art. Carol totally disagrees with me; she believes that only he produced all the articles we saw for sale.
The pottery of old Peru shows motifs that are all based on nature and spiritual belief. Having been isolated from Europe, having their own culture, their art is unique in the world. Whether one likes the art or the decorations of the pottery, the pots are made well and are quite beautiful.
Just across the street from the pottery is a very weird sight. We saw a sign that said gold prospecting, a guide, Orlando, told us about this place and we had a visit. Like most houses in Peru there is a wall around the property. You have to enter a gate to get access and the gate was open so we entered. Yes, it was a tourist trap too but what a weird picture was presented to us. In the beginning of the yard a man had an assortment of rocks collected in order to show us what kinds of minerals are available in Peru. In the backyard, however, we saw a 12 year old kid crushing rocks. He used a large rock on which was a board where he stood using a rocking motion (like standing on a teeter-totter), he made a powder of the smaller rocks beneath aided by lots of water. Another, older fellow added more water when needed. The whole place was very primitive, dirty and yet they worked steadily. They looked for gold. Using poisonous mercury, added to the water and the powdery sediments, they would extract some fine grains of gold that seemed to make up for their hardship. Now this was a sobering sight. The conditions of their surroundings screamed poverty yet they pursued their search for gold. I felt as if they had a fever, a gold fever. Hardly noticing me they worked like animals only to get more gold. Their clothing was caked with the mud, their workplace was filthy, I did not feel they cared about anything but gold. The place around them was dilapidated, run down, filthy, they did not care, all they wanted was gold. Gold above anything! Gold above comfort, hygiene, danger to their health! Gold above humanity! It was a fever, Gold Fever! It was a shock to me. To see such conditions of life in the middle of a city and yet… was it new? Was that kind of gold fever present when Francisco Pissarro landed in Peru? Maybe in a different form but I believe now that there is such a thing as gold fever.
Was that kind of greed present when robbers destroyed evidence of ancient civilizations just to gain some gold, destroying in the process anything that was in their way? Tangibles and intangibles were destroyed and the disease is still present today, right here in Nazca, Peru, I have seen it. There is still gold fever in Peru.

Chauchilla Cemetery

Nazca is known for the lines and the mysterious figures carved in the sands. Another site on everyone’s visit to Nazca should be the looted graves of the original inhabitants the region, the Paracas. The Paracas are an amazing people, not much is known about them. The Paracas left us with many mysteries.
Carol and I visited one of their graveyards, dated from 350 AD. This is the beginning of the ceramic culture of Peru, a precious moment in history and it is therefore most disturbing to learn that most cemeteries, if not all, have been looted in recent history. The gold was removed; the mummified corpses were thrown about with little regard to history and with only greed in mind. All the graves had pottery of the finest caliber, all had amazingly delicate woven cloth, and all of the graves had archeological rare clues as to their being. Now, most of it is destroyed, literally thrown about the sands of the desert. The floor of the desert is littered with pieces of bones, with skulls, with clothing pieces pulled into shreds. Human hair blows about in the wind.
What we learned is that all the people were buried in a fetal position, sitting up, facing east. The ancients mummified the bodies of the deceased by having the bodies sit in the full heat and sun of the desert for a few weeks before they buried them in their respective graves. All fluids were removed from their bodies and even after that, each body was packed in raw cotton to absorb any eventual moisture. The bodies were already mummified before they were buried in their graves. The walls of each grave were walled with adobe brick and a roof was added after burial and sand was added on top of the roof. This way, since there is no moisture in the ground in this area around here, the bodies kept their mummification for centuries.
A sign of honor in ancient times was very long hair; the longer the hair, the greater the honor. Two meter long hair was normal, the ancients never cut their hair and they wore it proudly in a turban fashion, on the top of their head. It was told to us that Shamans or priests had the longest hair, and naturally had the richest possessions with them in their afterlife. Shamans and Royalty were special targets for the grave robbers who used long, slim iron bars to probe the ground to find the cavities indicating a grave. The devastation of the cemetery, wrecked by the looters, was astounding. A very large area is pock marked with opened graves, most of them now filled up by the ever drifting sands of the desert.
The state of Peru today, in order to attract more tourists reconstituted some of the grave sides. I applaud the effort but it is a poor way to honor their inheritance, their dead. I took pictures of the few pieces of evidence left that is worthwhile to show. Human flesh still hanging unto the skulls, feet not totally decomposed, bones showing. The rarest and the few surviving examples of the former Paracas are just lying in the sands, exposed to the all the tourists.
The spot of the cemetery is a peaceful spot, not far from a river. I was told that there are many cemeteries like Chauchilla but all have been looted. The loot was sold to international collectors, giving only little money to the actual grave robbers. The beneficiaries of this kind of stealing were a few people; the biggest losers are human kind.

Buggy Ride

The sand dunes around our little oasis are impressive. When we awake in the morning our little place is still in the shadows of those dunes. It takes a little longer for the sun to reach us and the same is true late in the afternoon. The sun sets quickly, around 5.30 PM we start to see long shadows creeping along the sands near our oasis. This is the ideal hour for a ride in specially made dune buggies (pronounced “boogies” by the locals) and with an experienced driver, who knows his way around, it is fairly safe. Or so I thought.
The collection hour for all our passenger buddies is 4.30 PM. The buggies start up and each one is filled with gasoline, up to the hilt, but even filled more with testosterone. This is for grown up boys playing with their toys and you can take a ride on their toy. For 45 Soles per person (about $ 18.-U.S.) those drivers are thrilled to show you what they can do. Right off the start, before even backing out of the driveway, it is evident we are in for a different experience. Each passenger has to sit in a bucket seat and each passenger is given large safety glasses and the driver checks that the 3 point safety harness is clicked on correctly. I was so strapped into the front seat that my body could only wiggle, only my hands and head could move; my legs were pressed against the protection in front of me.
Off we go, down the Main Street of our little oasis to the entrance gate of the State Park, because all those dunes are part of a State protection system. When we encountered a slow car in front of us, or even a parked vehicle, this monster machine just drove over the median or the sidewalk to get around. The curb it had to climb was inconsequential. Like a little pebble on the road, the huge tires hopped right over the bump. Each passenger paid the park admission of 3.60 Soles and we were on the sands.
We took it easy in the sands for about 10 seconds, just to get out of reach of our small town and then… full force, hell-bent, screaming and howling at a G-force increasing speed. Each gear of the manual transmission was used to red line and the buggy responded accordingly. Straight up one sand dune, and then, without warning, a sharp right hand turn down into a gully, as steep as the ascent. Down shift and again, sand blasting behind us, down into the depths of the valley, only to be seemingly trapped between two smaller hills with a winding ‘road’ in between them. Hairpin curves, our tires spinning, and sliding around each corner, we are having ‘fun’. Each person howls and shrieks and the sand penetrates our clothing and hits us in the face. The fine sands which blow about normally are now piercing our skin like fine needles; hence the safety glasses. It is wild, but it seems like everybody is having a fine time, well, we paid for this, right. No time to recover! Our driver nonchalantly uses every trick in the book to ‘almost’ turn the buggy on its side. I say almost because it seems impossible that the buggy does not tip over, yet it never does; does not even come close. Our driver knows his stuff. The dune buggies were made for this treatment.
On and on this ride goes until, all of a sudden, we stop. We stop? Yes, we stop in the middle of nowhere. Everybody climbs out of the bucket seats and now, out from a net hanging on the back of the truck come the boards. Each passenger gets a sand board and we walk a few yards to see a drop off we are supposed to slide down. I am holding my camera and take photos instead. My age shows or my experience kicks in because I have been on a sand slide before and remember it took days to get sand out of crevices I did not even know I had. But our buggy is loaded with young guys and gals. Testosterone rules! Peer pressure adds to this, too. Each person straps on a board and the most daring go for the ride down the sand dune. Each one falls and all are now covered in sand. Head to toe. It might look easy on TV but this is the real thing. Not one person makes it to the bottom without taking a spill or sitting down halfway down. The disappointment is great. The dune buggy picks up the sand boarders at the bottom and off we go. Another race starts but this time we are joined by other trucks and a kind of chase occurs.
We find another, steeper longer stretch of sand. Everybody jumps out again, but this time, one of the drivers shows how to lie belly down on the board, elbows tucked in and legs held wide and low to use as brakes. Well, what a difference this makes. I almost joined them for a slide down this hill. Testosterone must not be that high in my system any longer because reason prevailed. I took a video. Each one of the belly sliders, guy or gal, made it down safely to the bottom of the dune. Naturally, some will never learn and insisted in sand-boarding down, standing up on 2 feet, trying to negotiate this hill. None made it; they just added more sand to their faces, inside their pants and another layer of fine grains inside their ears, in their nose, and so on. Like I said, this fine sand creeps into everything. The belly boarders had fun, especially the gals, now being on even term with the guys.
Ok, back in the dune buggy and again, with all the speed the buggy is willing to give to a very high, very steep sand dune. This time the question is, who will sand board and who will belly board. Yes, there are those who insist on conquering this very steep hill standing. Even a guy who previously did not manage the belly ride well is trying to impress now with a standing performance. No, he did not get a standing ovation. He fell; in fact so many times that he looked distraught. Oh, what hormones can do.
Carol and I had a good time watching, seeing the sunset from the top of a dune later on and admiring the young people do their stuff. The dune buggies, the drivers, the weather, the experience was worth the admission. We had a good time. We were back at 6.30, covered by the flying sand because we were sitting in the front seat but otherwise we survived another ‘adventure’.

Ica – Hostel El Huacachinero

Ok, Huacachina Oasis is a good place to go, a great place to hang out and a wonderful spot. www.elhuacachinero.com
I must recommend the bus company again, Cruz Del Sol, the company really works like clockwork. We got to Ica on time and we got off the bus as planned. What was missing was our pick up, Mr. Eduardo. Here we are with our luggage, waiting for Mr. Eduardo, which we think is just late. After 15 minutes I have the bus company agent call Mr. Eduardo and with many excuses he picked us up 15 minutes later. His brother, who was with him in his truck, speaks English but when they talked to each other in Spanish I got the impression that something went wrong. With Peruvian pride and machismo involved, it is best to let it be. We arrived at the hostel El Huacachinero and it is a wonderful place; for Peru standards. We received a substandard room for the 1st night, now we changed into a better room, because Mr. Eduardo did not make reservations we had to do it ourselves. We arrived about 8:30 pm and wanted only to sleep that first day after having a supper at the oasis. The place is nice. All did work out in the end.
I say oasis because that is exactly what it is. A small lagoon is formed by an underground river in a valley of very large sand dunes. The water comes to the surface and forms a small lake. Around the lake are a few houses and hotels; now totally serving tourists. Plant life adds to the charm of the place. Birds flutter about, the sun beats hot during the day but it cools off rapidly when the sun sets behind the high sand dunes, cradling the oasis. This oasis is only 5 KM from the town of Ica and it is unique. We are staying at the hostel that is run well, has an inviting pool, talkative parrots, a bar and restaurant. I would recommend it to anybody.
For our first full day we took the city tour of Ica. The hostel arranged for a driver, William, (Guillermo) tigretours_15@hotmail.com to take Carol and I to show us Ica. Our first stop was the chocolate factory of Helena Chocolates (www.chocolateshelena.com) and their product is delicious. Most of their export goes to the U.S. The area around Ica grows a lot of pecans and Helena puts them into her chocolate products in a unique way, yummy! We bought only 6 candies but oh, Yum!
After that stop we made it to the Museum of Ica known as “Institute de Cultura” or Museo Regional de Ica. My first impression was that it was substandard but it was not. In a few rooms the museum creates a good overview of what the cultures of the people that inhabited Ica thousands of years ago was all about. First traces of people in this area are 5000 BC. We paid for an English speaking guide and while her pronunciation was terrible I did get a lot out of her tour. We saw elongated skulls, the beauty image at the time. Mummies that were bound hand and foot and who represented the living sacrifices made to their local gods. Archeologists found them in the dry sands around Ica. With hands and feet bound, they were left sitting in the sand as a sacrifice to their respective gods. I shuddered when I thought about being the victim or like they believed the sacrifice. Even small children were sacrificed, even fetuses. Living then was quite brutal. We learned about the images on the pottery, the deity of the condor, the jaguar and the snake. The bottles that held the potions that made the shamans visit the underworld, or the world above or just any world the drug induced state would take them. The religious believefs of the Paracas or other local tribes, the original inhabitants, were totally different from anything we know today. I became aware of nuances in their pottery found in the sands around the city of Ica. The guide was very knowledgeable; I just wished I could speak Spanish well enough so I could take the Spanish tour, extracting all the wisdom the guide was willing to share. A great place to visit and I recommend it to anyone willing to study the ancients of Ica.
After we finished the Museum tour, we again met William plus he had his nephew Fabricio in the front seat, an 11 year old young man, willing to go along for ride with his uncle. The school children are off for 2.5 months from the middle of Dec. until the End of February. It’s their summer break. Fabricio was visiting family on his vacation. So now our tour consisted of 4 people. Our next stops were Bodegas (wineries) that made the Peruvian drink called Pisco. The first well known winery, “Tacama” had a tasting room, yet after tasting their local white or rose wines, I decided there must be a better place around.
So off we went to visit a more local, less known place and we bought Pisco Puro, 47% alcohol content, clear liquor said to be good if you have a cough. Well, Carol’s cough did get better after just one drink. Her eyes bulged a little but she forgot to cough when she tasted the drink. Potent stuff, this Pisco! The famous drink is Pisco sour and it adds sugar, lemon juice and beaten egg whites to the drink. This drink goes down easy and has a kick as well. We bought a bottle of the premix without the beaten egg white from the winery as well as one bottle of Crema de Pisco, containing figs as a flavor enhancer. It tastes like Bailey’s Irish Cream. We are all set for Peru now.
The last stop was a bodega called Lasso, around for over 250 years and it bears all the old pots and looks of a successful bodega. Well known by local folks it is normally not on the list of places to visit. William was a very good guide and his knowledge of the local places is amazing. We stopped to take pictures of workers in a cotton field, picking cotton. They earn 15 to 18 Soles a day for picking cotton for 10 hours in the blazing sun. That is about US $6.-to $8. – per day. There were many children among the cotton pickers. Peru is indeed a poor country. And it showed Fabricio how some of the other children spend their summer vacation. Fabricio learned from this trip, William our guide learned from us some new English words and Carol and I learned the most, I guess on this day touring Ica. A good town, I recommend, it, take William as a guide and say hello from me. He remembers me as Hans.

National Marine Sanctuary, Paracas, Peru

The tour started at 7.30 AM and Galinna, our guide was on time as usual. Happy as always, she had her driver take us to the center of town and we had breakfast at a local stall. Not much to choose from but the freshly squeezed orange Juice and a pressed cheese sandwich did us just fine. The town of Paracas just woke up, too. It being a Monday the trash was especially heavy from last Sunday night celebrations. Not a special Celebration, mind you, but a ton of trash on the ground, in the ocean, in the few flowerbeds, basically strewn all over. We saw it Sunday when we visited the “Party” on the boardwalk. On Sunday night the noise level was huge. The party was on with the music blaring, the paper cups strewn and the beer flowing freely. We left the beach area on Sunday in a hurry, for folks like us downtown Paracas, the little it is, was just in bad taste. We ate Sunday night at a recommended place and the food was fair. Best in town, it was said. Well, it was the best we could do.
Today, Monday the clean up was on and the boat to the Marine Park, a biological Sanctuary for marine animals, and a National Park of Peru was well organized. A lot of people showed up, I did not know that so many tourists were about. My guess would be about 400 people total. We stood in queue to get in rather smallish boats. 20 people to a boat the loading was a bit chaotic but we finally left.
First stop was the Candelabra, a huge figure dug into the sand on the side of a hill, facing the Ocean, marking what ? Nobody knows who carved this sign into the sand but speculation runs from a marker by an early statesman to mark the territory, to a sign carved by Pirates who used the harbor of Paracas as a hiding place, to a sign of a lost treasure map, etc. Nobody knows but the ideas run wild.


A bit farther after running the boat full speed across the wavy ocean, we arrived at the group of Islands that now house the Marine animal reserve. The Ballestas Islands are small, some even tiny and are covered in wildlife. Tens of thousands of birds and animals use these bits of rocks as a sanctuary. Sea lions, just finished having their baby cubs, now in the mating season are using every beach available. Penguins are walking about this far north as if they too, were on vacation from the cold in Antarctica. We saw cormorants, flocks of sea gulls, and so many different avian species that I cannot list them all. On the way back in, we saw 3 or 4 dolphins diving through the waves. This visit was very impressive, full of life, a good adventure in a small boat on the ocean. I liked what I saw, it was very educational. We took too many pictures but it was fun. The bird droppings, Guano, are now only collected every 5 years. Years ago they were literally hundreds of yards thick. Guano is an excellent fertilizer and wanted by most professional gardeners. Even today, after just 5 years the Guano is knee deep all over the rocks.
When we returned to town we had a trip booked to the National Reserve of Paracus, recommended as an addition to the Marine trip and we just waited with a cup of Matte de Coca until the next trip started. We were passed on to Carlos, our guide for the next 4 or so hours. We left in a small bus built in the 1960’s. The engine ran well but that is about it. Just outside of the town of Paracas is desert. There is nothing in this desert. No plant life. Nothing! I have a dilemma here, I find it difficult to describe nothing. The temperature climbed into the 90’s during the day but cooler breezes off the ocean helped. Yes, it can get hotter. There is no humidity. This is the driest desert of the world. The only road through this desert was built using clay and salt. Since it never rains, the salt works as a great binder and makes the clay hard. Paracas mean ‘Sand Storm” and yes, swirling hot winds create sand devils visible for miles. The mix of flat nothing to hilly nothing to mountainous nothing is startling. I am not used to this much nothing, I took some pictures yet it was hard to find anything to take a picture of.
Along the coastline the recent earthquake of 2007, 7.6 on the Richter scale, shook some huge blocks off the land and what was a formation called The Cathedral is now just a pile of rubble. Immediately at the line of ocean and land the winds are fierce. Condors come to visit, I am told, to vacation here and eat the placentas of the sea lions and the carcasses of the baby seals that did not make it. I did not see a condor, however. We walked around like tourists, herded by Carlos and the sand blew into the bus. Very fine it irritates the mucus of the nose, the throat and I am sure you digest it, too. Carol has a cough; which makes me wonder of the people that live here have silicosis. This area is rough on ones system.
We stopped for 1 hour lunch at a former fishing town which lives exclusively off tourists now. A hustle place where even going to the bathroom costs you -.50 soles and you get 3 leaves of toilet paper. Hand washing is a bottle filled with water, the sink has no faucets. Don’t ask me where the residue goes. I don’t want to go there. This town is immediately next to a small cove on a beach and everybody is encouraged to take a dip in the water. Young people sunbathed, many went for a swim, and little kids played in the sand. Carol and I sat in a shady spot and waited it out. No lunch, no swim, no ice cream; all to the amazement of the hustlers that tried to sell us everything.
We got back to town, paid our invoice at the hostel, picked up our luggage and got a ride to the bus depot; we are now off to Ica. Good bye Paracas, it was a stopover but not a place I would recommend except to see the Marine Sanctuary.