Weekend Trip to the Coast! :-)


Day One (June 20th): We arrived late last night to our hotel in Huacachina so I had no clue what to expect when I got up in the morning for my run. Much to my delight and surprise, we were surrounded by massive sand dunes! It was absolutely beautiful and I enjoyed every last minute of my run! After a quick breakfast, we headed out for a few hours of Dune Buggying and Sand Boarding, which was by far the highlight of the trip! I had a blast trying to actually sand board standing up, and was pretty dang successful by the last dune! Afterwards, we spent some time at the nearby Oasis before heading to the winery for lunch and a tour. The highlight of the winery trip was by far the chocolate samples (not the Pisco samples), as they were absolutely delicious. The fig preserves were also fantastic! Then we headed over to see the "witch village" which was actually kind of lame...a weird shapped palm tree in the middle of a dusty village. We listened to some kid tell a legend about the tree and then point out all the weird shapes to us. Afterwards we went to a "witch"/medicine man, who was also midly disappointing, as he wore a polo shirt and nikes...we were hoping for at least a witch's hat. haha!



Day Two (June 21st): Nazca! I woke up around midnight last night with horrible stomach pains and ended up losing my dinner an hour later. Finally I fell asleep around 2 am...completely exhausted and frustrated at Peruvian standards (or lack there of) for cleanliness. It was cloudy in the morning so we went to a pottery shop where a guy gave us a demonstration on how the Nazca culture made pottery: no pottery wheel...just straight up by hand and only one firing, not two like the Western/Eastern methods, pretty dang cool, eh? Finally the clouds parted and we got to go up in the plane to see the lines. They were totally breath-taking...either that or it was the flying in tight circles at a 80 degree angle to the ground- Yikes! My favorite was by far the Baleen Whale, because he's so cute and happy! After the flight, we headed over to the Nazca cemetery where we saw a bunch of mummies, which were all dry and crusty. haha! That night we drove back through Ica to Paracas, being sure to stop at the Plaza Vea (think Peruvian Walmart) to stock up on fruit, batteries, etc.



Day Three (June 22nd): MY 22nd BIRTHDAY! I woke up in the morning to do my long run...along the beach!!! That in and of itself would have been enough to make me happy, as it combines two of my favorite things: running and the ocean. :-) I got back to our very swanky hostel/hotel and packed everything up real quick before heading to breakfast, where our tour guide surprised me with a birthday cake! Lucky for me it was covered in carmel, so I just scrapped off some carmel and enjoyed a carmel apple along with my eggs for breakfast. Then we headed over to Ballestas Islands where we saw Penguins, Seals, Pelicans and a ton of other birds. It was a pretty sweet birthday trip! Then we hung out in Paracas for a bit...I soaked up some beach time and then we had delicious Ceviche for lunch before the long ride back to Ayacucho. This was definitely a weekend trip to remember!



Photos (in the process of uploading):
http://s182.photobucket.com/albums/x29/deearthur_photos/Peru/Ica%20Nazca%20and%20Paracas%20Oh%20My/