I spent the long weekend over New Year at the coast with 6 other volunteers, Pancho our friendly tour guide, and a Belgian driver called Pierre. Although it was a nice change to see the sea, I must admit I really missed the mountains! And I could have done without the stingray incident ...!
We set off in a very comfortable van on Friday afternoon and drove over some very high mountains for about 6 hours before reaching flat land - and what's more when you reach flat land it's desert - all very strange for those of us now acclimatised to the high-mountain life-style! The houses are a completely different style, some with flat rooves made of bamboo as it never rains in some places. But it's also a very fertile area, and where most of the country's fruit is grown, as there are undergorund water channels feeding the land. It's also the main wine-producing area and I was holding out hope that I'd finally find some good Peruvian wine!
We headed straight for the coast and checked into a hotel in Paracas. We arrived in time to stroll out to the coast and find a really good restaurant serving excellent fresh fish. Sitting outside in the warm summer evening air, sipping pisco sours, it really felt like being on holiday! It was nice to be by the sea again, and despite the rather strong smell of seaweed that I could have done without, I was getting that urge to jump in the sea, but managed to resist.
Next morning it was up early and we were on a boat trip out to the Islas Ballestas by just after 8. This is a nature reserve here that's known as the poor man's Gallapegos. The 2-hour round trip was great. First we passed by a giant candelabra that is carved out of sand on one of the cliff faces - theory is that it's been here over 200 years and has some kind of nautical link (sorry, didn't , and hasn't eroded too much as there's no rain!
Then off to the islands and a great tour of penguins, sea lions, pelicans, and lots of other birds that others may have been able to identify, but they all looked like sea gulls to me! And absolutely loads of guana, that is exported to the US and Europe!
We then had a free hour before lunch, so of course I wanted to go swimming! Nobody else seemed keen, but that didn't put me off, and even though I'd been warned that there was a lot of seaweed, it still looked pretty tempting to me, so in I plunged! Less than 2 minutes later, after only a few strokes, I felt a sharp pain in my foot and thought I'd been nipped by a crab or something. But the pain got worse very quickly and so I came out to investigate further. Oh dear ... blood all over my foot and a rather deep cut that wasn't too pretty, and various locals came rushing up to me immediately, got me to sit down, and straight away started squeezing whatever they could get out of the wound - not even a hello first! They realised what had happened before I did - I'd been stabbed by a stingray. One of the locals even brought a dead specimen over to show me! Apparently there are a lot in the bay before it gets busy; once more people go swimming in peak season, then they all swim away and all is fine! Nobody had warned me!!
I survived, otherwise I wouldn't be typing this now, but it was all rather painful and very embarrassing! The pain got a lot worse very quickly and I was escorted to the local clinic by a nice volunteer and some young boys from the beach, who seemed fascinated by a gringa getting stabbed by a stingray! An injection in my bottom, 2 in my foot, and a lot of cleaning out later, I was packaged off with 4 days' worth of antibiotics to prevent any infection and was told to call in again the following day to have things checked over. It was a great relief to find that although very painful, it was not really serious. And by the time I was hobbling out of the clinic, another sting-ray victim had already arrived! The foot turned a lovely purple colour and continued to hurt for several hours and got very swollen so it was hard to walk, but it didn't really stop me doing much, and I was still back at the restaurant in time for lunch - didn't want to miss the ceviche afterall! And very good it was too!
We then headed for Ica, and en route stopped of at 2 wineries. I hadn't yet started my antibiotics, so a few samples of pisco and wine went down quite well, and although I can't say that any of the wine was great, it definitely reduced the pain!
Once we got to Ica we checked into our hotel but 10 minutes later we were off again up to a place called Huacachino, an oasis-resort up in giant desert sand-dunes.
Here we took a 2-hour sand-buggy ride which was a totally amazing experience - a kind of larger-than-life sandy fairground roller-coaster ride ... hard to describe, and I'm afraid I don't have too many photos either! The buggy drove us up over the giant sand-dunes - we bounced over the top of dunes and then plunged right down - for anyone who's been skiing, the experience was a bit like whizzing through a massive gulley, out of control ...
Then along the way, we stopped at various points to do sand-boarding. At this point, Mum you'll be relieved to hear, I opted out as I didn't want any more trips to the clinic! Foot wasn't really up for any more excitement today ...
And at the end we drove up to a high point and watched the sun set over the desert - after all the thrills, it was very lovely and tranquil.
OK, well it almost worked!
The next day, it was up early again for a 2-hour drive through more desert to Nazca, for a 30-minute flight over the famous Nazca lines. These lines are a bit of a mystery, and there are various theories as to why they are there - could be aliens, could be offerings to the gods for rain after a 40-year drought. I favour the latter theory, but what do I know?! What is so strange about them is that you can't really see them other than from the air. The flight was in a tiny, wobbly plane, and I felt rather queasy most of the time, but I did manage to see most of the animal shapes, though they were much smaller than I had expected! I'd been spoilt by video and postcard images that were all much more dramatic-looking! It was still worth it though - fascinating experience. I don't seem to have captured anything on any of my photos, but here's one that shows some of the geometric shapes, sort of, to give you an idea ...
After lunch and a few tours round some ceramics workshops, a museum, and a demonstration of gold extraction, it was time to drive back to Ica. We also had to make a quick visit to the local hospital to get my foot checked, change the dressing, etc. and I got some very strange looks - Nazca is in the middle of the desert afterall - not a lot of accidents involving fish round here ... I was asked if anyone had put blue dye in my foot which didn't give me much confidence in the nursing expertise!! Good job it was only a minor injury as otherwise my foot would have remained in my sandle!
By the time we got back to Ica we were all pretty exhausted and not really feeling very energetic about partying for New Year, so we opted for a nice meal out in a restuarant.
Then it was back to the hotel for midnight celebrations. The hotel was unexpectedly quiet, however, so we had to make a quick taxi dash back into the centre to buy some champagne and then just made it back in time! Then we couldn't get the cork out of the bottle and had to attack it with a penknife, and then once we'd finally extracted it, it was just as bad as the last bottle of Peruvian champagne that we'd had for Christmas. Oh well, it had to be drunk!
With a bit of a hangover the next morning, it was nice to know that we weren't leaving for Ayacucho until 12, and so I finally managed a very uneventful and pleasant swim ... in a safe and clean swimming pool! Then 6 hours' drive back up into the mountains, the mist, the rain, and the odd patch of snow here and there. And I must admit that it felt good to be back up in the altitude and to get 'home'.
I hope you all had a Happy New Year and that 2007 is going well so far!
