We leave Lima shortly after noon, taking like everybody else, one of the long-distance coaches heading south – first to the coast and desert, then to the mountains where all the famous places are.
To break up the long travel to the well-known town of Nazca, we first stay overnight in Pisco, a town port situated some 150 miles from Lima and famous for its islands with amazing marine life.
I’m happy to hit the road and get going, although the four-hour ride down the Pacific coast isn’t exactly mind-blowing – it’s just flat arid land with hardly anything of interest except for the occasional water tower advertising Inca Cola and a squatter settlement.
Even catching up on sleep, lulled by the rocking motion of the sturdy bus over the asphalt ruts of the Pan Americana highway, becomes a fiction as soon as the TV screen comes on and, with it, the screams of critters attacking.
And the dark fantasy continues, when, a mile out of town, we hit a roadblock and have to walk the rest of the way.
Get used to it, is Pablo’s only comment.
Roadblocks?! I look around the dark, desolate landscape of sand and rock stretching all along the highway. The last time I heard of barricades was when we studied the French revolution!
“Local bloqueos and strikes are common,” Pablo says, “since it’s the only way for locals to get attention for their cause. They’re a nuisance more than anything else, but can really mess up your tour logistics.”
And he should know, having gotten trapped in more than one.
Moving in front of me are the bulky shadows of my travelling companions.
Apart from the crunching sounds of broken glass dumped on the road, the only other sound penetrating the approaching night is the rattling noise made by the wheels of my suitcase.
I realize I’m the only person in the group traveling with a wheeled luggage!
I quickly swerve the bag towards the roadside in hope of a clearer path and less noise. But the protesters did too good a job dropping rocks and large chunks of concrete all over the highway, so that cars can’t pass, that the horrendous screech won’t stop penetrating the night.
I pretend I’m not aware of how dumb I look.
Pablo points to a spot on an empty roadside. “This is where the bus normally stops.”
I see abandoned food stalls and electoral billboards with graffiti all over.
“Remember it. If you miss it, the next stop is Ica, a town some 50 miles down the highway.”
I look into the thick fog illuminated by a ghostly glow of an occasional road light, and search for some points of direction. All I see, though, is a dark, quiet desert. How do you get your bearings in the Sahara?! Anyway, isn’t Pisco supposed to be a coastal town?!
A terrible, fishy smell invades the surrounding air.
“What’s that?”, a voice with a British accent cries out.
“Dry crushed fish added to food for chickens on local chicken farms,“ explains Pablo and adds, that the best way to get over the smell is to wash it down with a few refreshing Pisco Sours.
Pisco Sour, turns out, is a local cocktail made of a grape brandy called Pisco, lime juice and a whipped egg white, all served with ice. “They make them excellently at our hotel!”
The ability to say the right thing at the right moment is a real art .
I’ll need more than one shot myself.
There’s one thing good about the road being empty at this hour – with the protesters gone for the night, no one’s throwing rocks at us.
With an opening like this, it comes as no surprise that the town looks like a war movie set – streets are all dug up, metal rods stick out of roofs (no property tax paid on unfinished houses, apparently) and tangles of electric cables hang low between half-collapsed wooden poles. Abandoned, three-wheeled tuk-tuks are parked haphazardly along the streets, looking like people have just jumped out of them in a hurry.
Is that Hannibal Lecter lurking around the corner?!
To be fair – in 2007, Pisco was the scene of a terrible earthquake that almost wiped the place off the map and caused many casualties. It was so bad it made international headlines. Years later, the place still hasn’t fully recovered.
Some people were happy about it, though – namely, the 680 escaped prisoners whose prison collapsed during the tremors.
The next morning, things aren’t looking any better. Garúa, the persistent fog formed by the cold ocean air coming in contact with the dry desert air, so typical for this area, hangs on, accompanied by a fine, gray drizzle.
Nothing about this place selling the amazing islands nearby.
We join the crowd of people gathered on the pier, waiting to embark.
Suddenly, a sturdy, foreign-looking guy swings himself up onto one of the promenade candelabras and starts giving a pole dance performance.
Nothing but words of praise can be said about his basic spins, cross leg climbs and body inversions, not to mention the genuine joy the middle-aged guy brings into it!
Clearly, Pisco Sour gives you wings, too.
A joy way too real for some – a group of grumps (Americans, of course) can’t take the man’s open sensuality and start complaining about this outrageous public display of indecent behavior.
The man has to be pulled down from the pole by his comrades.
Not cool, Americans, not cool!
Now, nothing is standing in the way of the trip to the islands.
After putting on life jackets (smelling of mold), we take off; a deafening roar of engines fills the air. It’s both annihilating and exhilarating the way the boats are cutting through the choppy waters, taking our breath away.
After passing a gigantic, prehistoric candelabra symbol of 600 feet height, engraved into a cliff face above the water, spectacular scenery of rock caves, cliff arches and rugged beaches open up before our eyes. My country has no access to sea, so this is my first time seeing ocean mammals in the wild.
“Look how black with cormorants the island is! It’s covered so thick there’s no space for anything else!”
“We gonna get pooped on by birds! The guide says there’s 750,000 pelicans nesting here ALONE!”
“It means good luck!”
“For the dry cleaners, maybe!”
“Look, the seals are jumping out of the water! So cute!”
“Hey, boobies!”
“Where?! Show me some boobies!”
“Those walruses are some massive badasses!”
“Shush, you’re scaring the penguins!”
“I don’t think these life jackets would’ve passed Canadian standards!”
“My hat!”
“Do you know that sea lions can sleep in water? With only half their brain, but still!”
My eyes are glued to the tens of thousands of birds, creating perfect patterns and formations above our heads, which keep suddenly breaking up and rearranging themselves like Roman legions in the middle of a battle.
The humming of the wings sounds like a ceaseless, soft rain.
Although nicknamed Poor Man’s Galapagos, these islands have nothing second-rate about them.
This is not the last of our excitement today.
A cavalcade of 1970s American Cadillacs is waiting to take us to our next location – the Huacachina oasis. Painted by their Peruvian owners in bright colors, the cars are polished to such a high gloss they shine like diamonds in the desert.
“How did you get them?!” I inquire of Pablo, unable to believe my eyes. What a grand-style ride through the desert!
“Peeky will give me so much shit,” Pablo sighs and closes his eyes with a martyred expression; we’re only supposed to travel by public transportation. No splashing.
I feel for Pablo. To hell with bosses! I like splashing, too.
Lying sprawled out on the cars’ padded leather benches, we drift in and out of sleep hoping the slow rocking motion never stops.
It does – two hours later when the engines start overheating.
Turns out, cars designed for cool climates don’t do well in desert environments.
The drivers just shrug their shoulders and sit down by the side of the road to have a smoke. It’s up to us gringos to dish out our water supplies so that the ride can continue.
We arrive in Huacachina as dry as California raisins.
The Huacachina oasis is a tiny green oasis, hidden in the middle of a vast desert expense going as far as the eye can see. Set around a small natural lagoon with a ring of palm trees and an even larger ring of gigantic dunes encircling it, it looks like an alien location from Star Wars – weird and stunning at the same time.
Until you get close enough and see the water quality and cigarette butts lying around.
The several hundred feet high dunes form an impenetrable wall, taller than the Empire State Building and rising at such sharp angles that, viewed from below, one gets the impression that their tops would quickly break and sweep over the place like a sand tsunami. Trudging up on them are little figures with sand boards under their arms.
Dune buggy rides are one of the popular activities here. It’s not for everyone, though – the rides are fast and terrifying, especially if he’s a kamikaze behind the wheel.
And our driver is. Edwin, the tall and skinny owner of a dune buggy rental, has long hair, glassy eyes and a new-born baby.
Adelante! He steps on it, waiting for no one.
Up the hill we go, like all hell is on us, ripping across the desert Mad Max style.
Edwin’s flip-flopped foot never leaves the gas pedal, his eyes behind ski goggles scanning the horizon for the highest dunes to terrorize us with. His long hair flies wildly around his head, teeth shine in a dusty face. We take the slopes so rapidly, it looks like we’re about to get blasted into the intergalactic space.
“He won’t stop ‘til he rips our heads off!” a yell arises amidst hysterical shrieks.
We take off the dunes like Eddie the Eagle takes off the ski jumps.
One last time, we’re hurled into the depth below, free falling, when Mad Edwin gets up in his seat, pretending to step out. We yell with abandon, nailed to the seats, holding on for dear life.
“Whoever it was that said that jumping off a tower is a way to overcome your fear, was an idiot!”
“And to think we paid for this,” says a shaky voice when the hell ride is over.
Sandboarding, another popular activity, has to be postponed for a bit.
When we finally get to Nazca that night, we’re as dried out and done in as the local mummies buried in the sand.
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