Oasis, Desert and Pisco

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From Punto Hermosa (surfing) I headed down South to Paracas, where you find Isla Ballistas (the poor man’s Galypolys), it is a tiny tiny town, with not much more than a row of hostels and a full two minimarkets.

Being an absolute cheapskate, I influenced Taylor, a Canadian girl I met in Paracas, to not take a tour for R90 for the day to the National Park, no we’d rather walk the 11km’s to the first lookout.

11km, a breeze right? Here’s the truth, it’s desert, it’s probably 35 degrees, there is nothing, nothing, but sand. We started out fine, after roughly 20minutes, we realized this was a bad idea, there is zero scenery. We decided hitch-hiking through the Peruvian desert is a way better idea! First we were picked up by this Italian guy with a Peruvian girlfriend, they were super nice, but apparently got tired of us, because they left us at the lunch spot in the desert! We could not figure out what we did, since we sat on the back of his pick-up, barely in his way. Then we stopped the fish guy…transporting fish in this old beat-up blue truck, that smells well, like fish! The trip took about 3times longer than it should’ve, but we were giggling all the way back to Paracas, because once we realized we were deserted in the desert, we started drinking….it made the fish trip back worthwhile!

We derived that we had a way better day than the boring tourists, in their boring aircon Mercedes, with boring tour guides. There wasn’t much to see anyways!

A short little boat trip out to the Ballistas islands, home to about 7million birds, with smells to suit, as well as sea lions and penguins. I love sea lions, they have this wise expression and you could get really close to them.

Here, I met Mr Big Personality, as I’d like to call it, that typical Aussie type, wearing wife beater shirts and a personality that pulls people. We were heading the same direction, Huachachina.

Huachachina is literally an oasis, with 87 permanent residents, all serving backpackers in one way or another. It’s so corny and so exactly like the picture I had in my head of an oasis, that it’s kind of “cute”, (horrible word that). It’s a small little lagoon, everybody was hysterical when I called it a dam, but it’s a dam, surrounded by sand, massive sand dunes, desert and incredible sun sets.

The difference between this place and the (original) picture in my head of an oasis; Pisco Sours.

The lagoon is surrounded by a hundred hostels, 50 restaurants all advertising “Happy Hour” the entire day!! There is nothing to do but sand boarding and buggy riding, which happens in the afternoon, consequently, the entire town parties and pub crawls around the water from 6pm until roughly 11am.

Pisco sours is a pure white alcohol produced in this region, they serve it as a Pisco Sours, with sugar, lemon and egg white, you are supposed to have only one before dinner (note the “suppose” and remember the happy hour) there is also wine produced here, but I’d rather have litchi flavoured papsak with Sprite (to actually get it in), the way I had it at varsity for R35 than that stuff.

We hung out with some local guys that ‘taught’ us to drink it there is all kinds of rituals involved and you’re not allowed to pull a face, because the proper way to drink it is actually clean. Although, I think they make all that stuff up to make idiots out of all the tourists, but no one really minds, because it’s good to hang out with the locals.

The sand boarding was one of the most fun things I’ve ever done! I was the worst in our buggy by roughly a country mile, because every European person snowboards before they can actually walk! I have only ever ski’ed, so I sucked, big time and must have fallen at least 35 times, but who cares!

The dune buggy riding has been one of the highlights so far, he guns it up and down massive sand dunes and often your stomach creeps up into your mouth, if you ever can do it, do it! You’ll love it.

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Photos

HC8
Locals showing the 'ritual'