Fast Forward

Greetings All from Nazca, Peru! It´s only been a couple days since I last wrote, but so much has happened that I´m dedicating this entry to telling you all the stuff we´ve been up to. We´ve been on the move ever since we left Mancora, and have been traveling down the coastline. So all of the scenery in Peru, thus far, has been complete desert or ocean...which is the opposite of the huge Andean Mtns I pictured in my head. Of course, Peru has that too, we just haven´t gotten there yet!

So what have we been up to along the coast? Well, unfortunately, it´s been a bit of a whirlwind of touristy activities. It´s good, because you´re seeing sights and such, but it´s not fun when you find yourself in the amazing country of Peru...eating shitty Italian food...and listening to a group of old men play Guantanamera on wind pipes. That´s when you feel like a huge gringa that´s getting taken for a ride. :)

Ok, so Sunday I visited the Museo del Oro (which had a huge collection of pre-Incan and Incan artifacts...very interesting!) and afterwards, had the best Ceviche ever as my last meal with my great hosts in Lima. I then met back up with the group for our bus ride to Pisco - a town that unfortunately has been reduced to rubble after a terrible earthquake in 2006. Literally, our hostel was the only standing structure on the block. It was creepy and the town felt hollow and unsafe.

We woke up and took a ride to the Islas Ballestas, also known as the Galapagos of Peru (or the poor man´s Galapagos) It was actually pretty neat. We packed way more people into one boat than you ever thought would be possible (yes, that´s a hot trend here!) and took a rather frigid 20 min cruise out to the islands. But once we arrived, it was really neat to see all the birds (there were tons!!!), seals, and penguins. I took lots of pictures, which later I´ll probably look at and think ¨why the hell do I have 50 pictures of birds?¨ but hey!

We stopped in HuacaChina for lunch and optional sand-boarding. I walked around and jumped in the pool, figuring I can roll around in the sand for free :) (Funny story: In Mancora I was on the beach alone and apparently couldn´t reach the middle of my back with sunscreen...so I had a big burnt strip on the middle of my back, which is now pealing, and looking awesome!). Ok...so then we were off to Nazca, where we arrived and enjoyed a ¨really great meal and authentic local bands¨ (see paragraph 2 for non-BS version) .

Yea, that was all just 2 days...

So today I went to a tower in the middle of the desert where I could see two Nazca lines - ¨the tree¨ and ¨the hands¨. It was cool to see them with my own eyes, but I didn´t regret not paying $70 US dollars to fly over them this morning at 6am. I figure I can eat off that money for 4 days (oh eating...my very favorite thing to do!). In the afternoon, we took another ride out to the middle of nowhere (BTW, when I say middle of nowhere. I mean think the movie Seven, during the ending scene when the crazy guy takes the cops out to the desert to open the box...yeah, that, but without power lines or paved roads). Ok, so where was I?...Oh yes, we arrived at an ancient cemetery of the Chincha people. We saw original mummified bodies and graves, and it was actually quite interesting. Although I do find the sight of human skulls with full sets of hair a little disturbing...and very rasta at the same time! ;)

So you think I´m done...Oh no, don´t be so impatient. Obviously we haven´t done enough, so we visited a local potter, who still creates pottery according to ancient tradition...and then visited a sight where we saw people mining gold. I´d go into these things further, but there´s just too much to say and not enough time. But overall, I have to say that the poverty can be really sad. You think that mining in deathly conditions for almost no money is old news, but there are hundreds of people putting their lives on the line to survive everyday...and I thought putting in expense reports was annoying!

So now, we´re about to go catch our first overnight bus (I don´t know how scared to be right now), which leaves at 11pm and arrives tomorrow morning in Arequipa at 10am.

I´m sorry this entry is more of a laundry list then a collection of interesting thoughts, but I wanted to keep you up to date on things and I´ll write more thought provoking material later, I promise!

Until then...