After the lines we headed to Ica and then a short ride took us to Huacachina, a desert oasis, literally! The small town of Huacachina is built around a lagoon and it only takes about 10 minutes to walk around it, during which you've seen most of the town too. There are mostly restaurants and hostels with a few shops and private residences too and if you aren't a tourist, you're trying to sell something to a tourist. Still, it's a very picturesque place, and the oasis is also on the back of the 50 sol note. Like most of the lakes in Peru, there is an accompanying legend about a forlorn maiden who somehow created the lagoon. The story here describes a mermaid bathing who is surprised by a hunter and in her haste to get away, drops her mirror and the shattered pieces became the lagoon. The waters are rumored to have medicinal properties and a number of kids were swimming in the water. I contented myself with just sticking my feet in since I saw quite a few Inca Kola bottles floating around in the water. Our hostel looked like a little oasis too, with hammocks and lots of greenery. We booked an afternoon dune buggy ride and sandboarding trip to avoid the heat of the day and experience the dunes that surround Huacachina and Ica. The buggy ride was like a roller coaster on sandy wheels and we definitely caught some air while driving over the dunes. Sandboarding was interesting, it was like snowboarding very slowly. We couldn't get much speed standing on the board so for some of the bigger dunes we went down on our stomachs, which was a lot easier and more fun.
The next day we woke up bright and early to visit Parracas, known as the 'Galapagos of Peru.' The first sight we saw from the boat was the Candelabra, an ancient form on the side of a hill that's survived the test of time and even someone driving over it with a motorcycle. Then we got to the guano (bird poo) islands! Where there's a lot of birds, there's a lot of poo. Peru has made and still does make a lot of money from the export of guano, a nitrate rich fertilizer. The islands smell pretty bad but the smell was worth seeing all the wildlife. The islands are covered in penguins, pelicans, and lots of seabirds whose names I don't know. We saw tons of sea lions sunning on the rocks, including babies and huge bulls. We even saw some sea lion heads bobbing around in the ocean as we left the islands. I narrowly avoided being pooped on because the woman in the seat behind me was hit midway through the tour. Our tour guide was prepared and quickly wiped her and my seat off (I had been standing thankfully).
This bird was a bit confused, or thought he was going to be fed.
We narrowly avoided disaster when we almost headed to the town of Pisco (PEE-skoh) to see a pisco (Peru's national liquor, technically a grape brandy that Chile disputes is also their national liquor) making setup. After mentioning we were about to head to Pisco to our Parracas bus driver, he laughed and told us to go back to Ica because all of the good bodegas are there and the port city of Pisco only lent its name to the spirit because that's where it was imported from. Oops.
In the afternoon we went on a bodega tour and learned about the wine and pisco that Ica is famous for. Our cab driver/tour guide was hilarious and very knowledgeable about wines and pisco.The first bodega also doubled as a very dusty museum and we saw some random artifacts such as a stuffed Caiman crocodile, stuffed and mounted deer heads, textiles from the ancient Nasca peoples, old lamp stands, a sombrero, and World War era crank phones. The climate in Ica is perfect for growing grapes, warm and dry during the day and cool at night. None of the wines we tasted had any extra sugar added and ranged from a few months to a few years of fermentation. We learned the best pisco sours (Peru's national drink) are made with pisco acochalado, which mixes three grapes. At the second bodega we met the owner who let us sample his lime and orange flavored pisco and pisco with cream and cream and peach.
Overall, it was a great trip and the fact that it was about 80 degrees and sunny the whole time didn't hurt either.
