Where the after party takes place! Pioneer Saloon!

]]> http://meghanewalters.wordpress.com/2012/07/01/huacachina-and-ica/ Sun, 01 Jul 2012 03:38:43 +0000 meghanewalters http://meghanewalters.wordpress.com/2012/07/01/huacachina-and-ica/ We arrived in Huacachina at 12:00 pm on Friday. We checked into our hostel. It was called Sand and Lake hostel. It was basic but good. We shared a room with Valerie and Nilton. After check in Laura, Valerie, and I had a beer at the hostel bar with a Brazilian couple. Then we walked around the lagoon, climbed a sanddune, and basked in the sunshine for an hour or so. At 4:00 pm we met Julie, Michelle, and Nilton for our dune buggy tour.
The Dunebuggy tour was incredible. It was so much fun! We ripped along the dunes like a crazy roller coaster. My face was sore from smiling and screaming.

<img src="http://meghanewalters.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/20120630-223637.jpg&#34; alt="20120630-223637.jpg" class="alignnone size-full"

The views were breathtaking. It is hard to believe that the seamingly endless desert was on the same planet as rainy Vancouver. They get 2 cm of rain a year! Anyone from Vancouver would understand how shocking that is.
From the top of the dunes we watched the sunset as we sand boarded down the hills. It was incredible. The views along with the adrenalin of gliding down the hills on a board left me giddy for hours.
When the tour was done we showered and got in another bus for a wine tour. We drove into Ica for the winetour. They showed us how the wine was made, let us taste it at the different stages, and described Pisco Liquor. After the winery we went to the bar in the same vineyard and drank Pisco Naraña.

Everyone drank a lot of Pisco.

<img src="http://meghanewalters.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/20120630-223720.jpg&#34; alt="20120630-223720.jpg" class="alignnone size-full"

We stayed until 1 am and were driven back to Huacachina and dropped at cads de arena, the nightclub in town. It was weird. There was a boy band of about 10 men who all dressed and danced the same. I was tired by this time so Laura and I walked home and fell asleep.
In the morning Nilton, Laura, and I met Julie and Michelle for an English Breakfast at Banana Adventure. It was delicious. We sat around into the afternoon and chatted. Then we walked around the lagoon and stopped in the market where we bought bracelets.

<img src="http://meghanewalters.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/20120630-223650.jpg&#34; alt="20120630-223650.jpg" class="alignnone size-full"

We also rented a boat and paddled around the lake for a short while. The weather was absolutely incredible. It was about 25•C without a cloud in the sky.
Huacachina is an amazing town. It is a small oasis in the middle of a desert. It is small but there is a lot to do. If you plan to travel there I recommend staying at Banana Adventure where Michelle and Julie stayed. I did not sleep there but the common area is amazing with hammocks and palm trees and great food and drinks. I would definitely recommend a stop in Huacachina to anyone traveling in Peru.
You cannot miss the Dunebuggy and Sandboarding tour. My face still hurts from smiling so much!
A couple hours ago we took a taxi into Ica to get the bus into Arequipa. We got to Ica early and visited San Francisco Cathedral. It was beautiful, there was some sort of communion going on and the young girls were dressed in beautiful white dresses. Now I am on the overnight bus. It has wifi and comfortable seats. Pretty Woman is playing in Spanish. I need to sleep now. Another big day tomorrow.

<3

Maybe this was what made us decide to take a break somewhere warm. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t – I don’t remember, but it turned out to be a damn good idea wherever it came from.

An overnight bus ride took us to the desert town of Ica, and a 20 minute taxi ride took us to the small oasis of Huacachina. My first thoughts were we just walked into a tourist trap, with hostels, internet cafes and pizza restaurants around a man-made lagoon. But in Peru, even the tourist traps aren’t really that bad. Especially when you add a sandboarding tour to the equation.

We jumped in the dunebuggy (click the pic below of me posing like an imbecile in the drivers seat) and we took off. Our driver was a squat, bald man in his 60s nicknamed ’Schumacher’s dad’, and he lived up to his name by driving up and down the dunes like a lost F1 driver searching frantically for his track. Some of the ascents and descents were near-vertical but this wizened  In the process I think he realigned my spine as I couldn’t lie on my left side for a week afterwards.

It was great fun at the time though and even more so when we finally got on the boards. I’d never tried sand-boarding before but I’m reliably informed it’s a bit like snowboarding. We were all given a piece of a candle to wax our boards, so they glide over the grains, rather than stick. On the first few runs I spent most of the time on my arse, but after a while I did manage to stand-up for a few exhilirating seconds. You can also lie on the board on your front for a straight and speedy way down, with the added bonus of it being very difficult to fall off.

I never expected such a rush from a slab of wood and several mountains of sand, but I highly recommend it as a different way to spend a day. As the sun set over the Peruvian desert in a mutli-coloured mix of reds oranges and blues, we sped down the final king-sized dune and drove back to Huacachina still buzzing.

I’m now in the tiny little village of Huacachina, and by tiny, it has 300 people.  It’s a village that grew up around a oasis, in the desert, and it used to be where rich people would have retreats.

Huacachina

Nowadays, it’s part of the “Gringo Trail” in Peru, known as a party stop for white people.  I’ve found out why, too!  It’s a playground!  We took out dunebuggies and went driving through the sand dunes,  it was super awesome, like a roller coaster but the kind where you could pick your own route.  I’d highly recommend the experience to anyone, itcosts around 40 soles to hire a driver and sandboards.

Dunebuggy

Then we got to the top of the dune and pulled out the sandboards!  They were actually snowboards but modified so they’d work on sand.  For starters, they don’t have edges, and the ones we had had modified bindings so you could use your regular shoes.  You have to wax your board before every run, and sometimes halfway down the run if you go too slowly.  It was so much fun, but a little bit confusing for me because I snowboard, so I was trying to turn and stuff like in snowboarding, but you don’t have as much control with the bindings and sand responds differently than snow (obviously).

Sandboarding!

But know why this is so super-awesome?  Because you can do a winter sport in the summer!  You can go skiing(ish) without having to worry about bundling up or getting frozen toes or going in for hot chocolate breaks.  It’s the best thing in the world, except you get sand in like every orifice.

Me!

So Uncle Derek, I dare you to outdo that!

Now for this month’s podcast.  I decided to put something together that kind of goes with the flow of summer, something that fit well with the carefree, hazy days and misty nights.  Recently summer music has gotten holed up in the happy pop lo-fi beach music that’s oh-so popular today (and rightfully so, most is great); so instead, I tried to reach into all of the genres and  compile the songs that I thought best suited the atmosphere.  Fetch the portable fans.

07.09: Blaring Car Speakers in the Tune of Melting Popsicles: Download // Stream

1. [Δ0:00] Ayo Ayo Nene by Mor Thiam: No matter how hard I try, I can’t get this song off of my mind.  I don’t know what it is, but it sticks.  The groove is just unbeatable.  Also, this guy is Akon‘s dad.
2. [Δ5:34] La Bamba (remix) by Smack Music 7: Usually when I use a remix in a podcast I’d list the original recording artist, but Smack Music 7 totally made mashed potatoes out of this song.  Listen to La Bamba’s dead body floating in a jar of embalming fluid… I mean that in the best way.
3. [Δ8:20] Agua by Sad City: Once this song gets going it just doesn’t stop.  It gets you moving, keeps you moving, then throws you to the dogs.
4. [Δ12:27] Ambivalence Avenue by Bibio: I’m all about the infectious songs today, aren’t I?  This one hooks even harder than Ayo Ayo Nene.
5. [Δ15:54] Sheba by Phoaming Edison: This song reminds me of MTV, old MTV, the MTV that I wasn’t even around for.
6. [Δ18:32] Banana Jam Pt. 1 by Julian Lynch: If you have not listened to this song loudly while crossing any of the bridges entering any of the islands on the New Jersey coast than you have not lived.  He just released a split (+ videos!) with Ducktails on Underwater Peoples Records.
7. [Δ22:29] French Milk by Dunebuggy: Dunebuggy is Ryan Garbes of Raccoo-oo-oon, and Charles “Taterbug” Free.  Garbes brings the beats and Tatebug brings the eccentricity.
8. [Δ24:24] Calling In Sick (feat: Josiah Wolf) by Clovis Heald: Puts you to sleep in the heat.  Haven’t heard anything out of this camp since ’07.

——————–<=>——————–

06.09: Smelling Cut Grass: Download // Stream

Half-assed track list for a podcast that’s actually really good:

1. Hey Friend by Animal Collective
2. Onset – Beyond Clouds by Dolphins into the Future (AWESOME)
   
3. Delora by Religious Girls
4. Portofino by Teengirl Fantasy
5. 50mph by Memory Cassette
6. Fantastico by Christine 23 Onna
7. Tanning Salon by Matrix Metals
8. Daily Vacation by Ducktails
9. Gelly Roll Gum Drop by Sic Alps
   

Our sandrail frames are a great base for building your high performance off road dune buggy that is capable of exceeding 130 miles per hour. O-60 time is under 4 seconds on asphalt with all terrain tires.