Islas Ballestas and Huacachina

After Lunahuana, we continued working our way south, to the town of Pisco. Pisco used to be a beautiful, quiet, lovely place to visit colonial buildings and enjoy the Pacific. Three years ago it was practically wiped out by an 8.0 earthquake, which the town is now still very much recovering from. Today, the only appeal in going to Pisco is for a boat tour of Islas Ballestas, a place referred to as “the poor man’s Galapagos.” That nickname implies a variety of species that you’ve never seen before…that could blow your mind in their strangeness and beauty! Or, at least, that’s what I was hoping for.

Well, Islas Ballestas didn’t blow my mind, but it was nice to be surrounded by animals for an hour…animals in their natural habitat. That is special. The tour of the islands is entirely in the boat. Since you can’t get out, the species of these jutting rocks can live in peace, without being poked by tourists. That is very nice.

The sea lions were our favorite!

Check out the cute little penguins:

Interestingly enough, the birds of these islands create a product that is exported from Peru: their poop. Apparently, in the mid-1800s, guano from these islands was Peru’s biggest export! It is an excellent fertilizer. Today, however, guano extraction is regulated and is only taken from the islands once every few years.

After a couple days in Pisco, we continued south to Huacachina. Huacachina was once a big resorty-type get away for elite Peruvians. Today it caters to backpackers, and it is indeed full of budget travelers looking for a good time. The highlight of Huacachina is going sandboarding!

This little backpacker’s haven has a central “lagoon” that serves as a sort of town plaza. Hostels, bars, and neat cafes extend one block out from the lagoon. Beyond that, sand dunes seem to extend forever.

On our first day in town, we decided to climb up the sand dune near our hostel to get a view of Huacachina. You look up at the sand and it seems like no big deal. Climbing those dunes is much, much harder than it seems! Your feet sink in and it takes so much more effort than you expect to pull them up and take another step forward. We had to stop and catch our breath every few steps. But the view from the top is quite remarkable.

Ryan climbing up:

Taking a breather:

View from the top:

Looking down on Huacachina:

Later that day we hung out in hammocks and enjoyed the feeling of being in a kind of oasis in the desert. We read and wrote a lot….lovely and relaxing!

Hammock journaling:

Our plans were to go sandboarding the next day, but I ended up getting really sick our first night in Huacachina. By early evening, I could feel that something was wrong with my body. I couldn’t quite identify the source of the feeling, but I knew that dinner was out of the question for me, and that it was probably going to be a long night.

In anticipation of and preparation for a night of sickness, I decided that what I needed was a comfort book. I wanted a short, easy-to-read, yet wonderful novel to help me get through the night. I wanted it to be something I’d already read, that I knew I would love, that I knew would comfort me like the coziest blanket or best hug in the world. I considered several different books, until I finally arrived at what I knew was exactly the book I needed: The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri. I’d read this book my junior year in college for a “New York Literature” class I took, and loved it. So, with the brilliant convenience of immediate access to the electronic version, I purchased The Namesake on my kindle, curled up under the blankets, and began reading. Immediately I was swept into that world and was so moved by Jhumpa Lahiri’s ease with words…how she makes it seem so simple to construct flowing prose, with paragraphs rich in detail and imagery and never short on perfect descriptions of developing emotions and struggles. How can I explain why I find it so good? It’s good because it’s so easy to read, yet if you linger on each sentence, you can see how composed and constructed it all is. How everything fits together as it pulls you in. I love stories that take me away from my world momentarily. The beauty of Lahiri’s work is that she takes you away, but then she puts you right back in to your reality. It is not a true escape. It’s more like diving deeper into yourself.

Anyway, I read into the night, while Ryan fell asleep. Soon enough, as predicted, I found myself in the bathroom. I was basically sick all night, in and out of the bathroom. Ryan went down to the tienda in the middle of the night, in his pajamas, half-asleep, to buy me bottles of water.

It was a long, long night. I got too exhausted to read, so I watched Animal Planet, dubbed over in Spanish. The next morning, I wasn’t sick anymore, but I had no energy at all. I spent the entire day in bed with The Namesake and a couple bad movies. Ryan let me recover and he soaked up the sun, reading.


Needless to say, sandboarding was postponed.

We did finally go sandboarding another day, though, when I had my energy back. I guess a part of my brain was still sleeping, though, because the battery in my camera was nearly dead, and I forgot to pack an extra battery in my case. I was so bummed because there we were, surrounded by sand dunes, about to fly down slopes of sand on snowboards, and no pictures! But in the end, it was nice to just be in the moment. We had so much fun together, and didn’t have to think about capturing the moment with photographs. We were just in it.

One photo before the battery died. That's our dune buggy and driver behind me:

The driver of our dune buggy was completely insane. He went so crazily fast on really steep dips and climbs! Ryan and I were in the buggy with a few Israelis and a couple dudes from Europe. All of us were screaming on the wild drive. It was like a really long, sandy, seemingly unending rollercoaster ride...with no tracks. The kind where your stomach drops. A lot.

After the crazy dune buggy ride, we were dropped off by our driver at the top of a dune. He gave each of us a snowboard with velcro straps. He waxed the bottom of the boards. And down we went! The most popular way to sandboard down the slopes was not standing on the board, with shoes strapped in. Nope! Most people went down the slopes lying down on the board, HEAD FIRST.

We went down about eight slopes, and tried both ways (standing and lying down). Standing up was more of a challenge (that involved lots of falls), but going down on our bellies was definitely more fun. The very last slope was super steep and pretty scary. Ryan was thinking about the saying that parents tell their kids: If everyone jumped off a bridge, would you do it too? Our answer? YES, and head first. Ryan said: The only thing to fear is fear itself. So, we just held on tightly to our boards and let gravity take control.

Sandboarding was a blast! Our buggy driver drove us back to the lagoon, and we walked away with sand in our hair, ears, clothes, shoes, everywhere.

This was our closing event in the “south of lima” region. The next day we boarded a bus bound for Cusco. The bus climbed and wound its way through the mountains, driving higher than 4,000 meters above sea level. We finally arrived in Cusco 18 hours later, with headaches, backaches, dry noses, and very little energy. But excited to make plans for a trek to Machu Picchu!