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The day I arrived into Peru was the same day my cat died. I had been told a few days previous that she was believed to have cancer. After further tests she was found to have a tumor the size of a tennis ball in her abdomen and as such was put down. Back in Peru, Katie and I had just arrived in the surfer town of Mancora when we got the news.
We walked to the beach to say a goodbye to Wacky, now my second cat to die of cancer. We looked out over the water as the sun was setting, roughly marking Australia’s direction, and watched as silhouetted pelicans nose dived into the red and pink reflected water, in search of food. It was a sad start to our time in Peru but Peru quickly revealed itself to be such an incredible, fun and fascinating place that it made getting on with it that much easier.
Mancora was a fun place to hang around for a few days and had the best array of non-South American food since Otavalo but mostly the town simply struck me a little bit odd. Apparently one of the best surfing
spots in Peru, the beach, as a result, seemed to be quiet a scene and in addition to surfers attracted the type of backpackers who after only a few days liked to claim they were in with the scene and/or the locals. One kiwi girl we meet even bragged to Katie about the amusement she got watching newbies arrive, apparently committing some Mancorian faux par, when she herself had only been there 5 days! I too dispute the claim that there were any genuine locals in this place, except perhaps the beach vendors. Mancora in essences is a ramshackle town built only a block deep (and I would guess fairly recently) on either side of the Pan-American Highway. The tourist strip was frequently graced by passing double decker buses and semi trailers and I often wondered how many pissed gringos got run over stepping out of one of the many bars at 3 in the morning.
A couple of days later we left Mancora and began what was to be the most frenetic yet exciting week of travel so far. We caught an overnight bus down to Trujillo, half way down the coast to Lima and found an interesting
city to spend a day in but we were then quite happy to leave it again that night on another overnighter to Lima. Trujillo´s main draw card is the number of different pre-Colombian civilizations that had at one point or another existed there. This was particularly remarkable given how dry, desolate and desert like the landscape was, a feature which continued the whole way down the Peruvian coast line and which, to be honest, neither of us expected in the least. We went out to visit the incredibly interesting pyramids of the sun and moon of the Huaca people but were dismayed at the complete lack of funding made available to these sites. Such was the funding short fall that the Pyramid of the Sun still lay completely unexcavated under a millennia and a half old pile of mud. But while the Huaca people were incredibly decorative of their temples and ceramics they never had any form of written language and as such no one really knows what they actually called these temples. A tourist one day simply remarked that they looked kind of like the Sun and Moon Pyramids outside Mexico City and the name stuck!
The next
morning we continued straight through Lima to Ica and the desert Oasis town of Huacachina. Saying that Huacachina was amazing is somewhat of an understatement. The town, surrounding a gorgeous green lagoon and itself surrounded by 200-300m high sand dunes, was like something out of the Arabian Nights. It was only 4 kms from Ica but the sand walls give it an incredibly isolated feel and sitting on top of one of the dunes at sunset you could not help but feel alive and free. For the next few days we made Huacachina our base from to explore the surrounding area.
In the coolness of the afternoon, on our second day there, we went on dune buggy/sand boarding tour, in the vast desert dune-scape behind the oasis. Seriously one of the funniest things I have done on the trip so far. The dune buggies were unbelievable as they climb, at high speeds, near vertical dunes then plummet straight back down the other side. It was like a roller coaster with breathtaking scenery, no tracks and just that little bit more dangerous! The sand boarding itself was a little bit slow, a big bit disappointing and not nearly as fun
as just sliding down the massive dunes on the board, head first, on your stomach! Katie, my partner in crime, seemed capable of getting up unrivaled speed, as the group at the bottom soon found out as she couriered straight through them sending them scattering like bowling pins. An awesome sight to view from the top!
After spending another day relaxing by the pool and hiking up the dunes, we did a tour of the Ballastic Islands off Pisco advertised as a poor man Galapagos. And indeed it lived up its reputation. Although no giant tortoises or iguanas were around many penguins, pelicans, seals (pups, adults and the very old) and sea lions could be seen but mostly the place was just covered with (the not so allusive) Peruvian boobies. On the way back we passed a fishing boat that was being swamped by Pelicans and I could not help but think back to my old favourite movie Storm Boy.
With only 2 days left before we were due in Huancayo to start volunteering we made a final dash down to Nazca to check out the famed lines. (For anyone who doesn´t know of the Nazca Lines check
out the following wikipedia entry
Wiki Nazca Lines )The night we got there we went to a lecture on the lines in a purpose built planetarum in one of the hotels. The lecture was amazing and talked about all the different line theories that exist including that they were used as an astronomical calender, to mark events of the year i.e. solstices, as tribute to the gods or to mark locations of various water sources but as the lecturer concluded there are just so many damn lines that really they could mean anything! Whatever the point it seemed that water or the need for it played a big part in it all. But ironically this lack of water, Nazca being one of the driest places on earth, is the reason we can still see the lines today even though some of the lines are upto 2200 years old. The next morning we awoke early and took a 45 mintue light aeroplane flights over 12 of different line pictures. They are truly phenomenial and unbelievabe big! Before leaving that afternoon and making the long journey back north to Huancayo, we made a quick trip to the Nazca cemetary, where the Nazca people mummified,
stuffed in a basket and buried there elite. Again it was fascinating but the lack of funding was apparent. Peru, being a country with such a large number of ancient cultures and archaeological sites, seems to have a large funding discrepancies. While I am sure Machu Picchu and other big name sites get funding out of the ears it seems in this country, probably like many others, the smaller lesser known areas just struggle to survive.
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