Astrid and I went to Ica, to go sandboarding in an oasis of a pueblito right outside town called Huacachino. When we went to buy tickets, the kind woman behind the counter said that the tickets were for a “boogie,” which I thought was just transportation to the top of the sandy hill. In fact, it was a dangerous, thrilling, very sandy and quite smoky roller coaster ride over the dunes. A roller coaster ride without the hassle of hour-long lines or safety precautions. It was very fun, and it was totally unexpected. I did a lot of whooping. And then we jumped off the tops of sand dunes attached to sandboards, which Astrid absolutely excelled at (on her stomach), and I was frustrated by, but still had fun doing.

Mr. Cool:

We stayed in Ica at a very nice hotel called Inka del Sol, which had a huge pool and a big turtle and super comfortable beds and was just a great place to chill out for a while. And we went on a date for Valentine’s Day, which was fun.

I’m Eating Breakfast!

Traveling along the West coast of South America, one encounters a lot of Pisco, which is a liquor made from the skins of grapes. Chileans and Peruvians both lay claim to discovering/inventing this super-dulce, slightly disgusting beverage, but only Peru actually has a city named after it, which is where Astrid and I found ourselves next.

There are a couple little islands off the coast of Pisco that have been billed as “The Poor Man’s Galapagos,” so we booked a little tour and joined the throngs of gringitos in multiple Zodiacs circling the islands, taking thousands of digital photos of tens of thousands of three different species of cormorants and hundred of narking, swimming, and cutely posing sea lions. We weren’t actually allowed on the islands, which was just fine becausen they were completely buried in not-sweet-smelling bird poop, in some places as much as 50 meters deep. In past centuries, Europeans (mostly the Dutch) and North Americans mined the poop to be used as fertilizer. Which is probably not a fun job.

Poor Man’s Galapagos:

In Pisco we stayed at a nice little place with a tiny abuelita hostess and a tiny little pool (which I refered to as a piscinita) that I quite enjoyed goofing around in. We stayed in the Huaraz-themed room, which got us excited about our next destination. And we ate weird Peruvian meals and marvelled at how much the town of Pisco has not made a recovery after the earthquake it suffered a couple years ago.

We jumped on a bus for Lima and arrived there to find that all the buses to Huaraz were booked for the next few days. So, not wanting to waste time in The Ugliest City in South America, we found a bus headed toward Chimbote, which is a bit North of Huaraz. And in Chimbote we found a scary mountain bus back down to Huaraz, thankfully. This little detour added eight or nine hours to our bus-riding time, but we arrived in Huaraz the day after ariving in Lima instead of three days later, so it was definitely worth it.

As was Huaraz. Being a major trekking destination for turistas (many of those Of The Faith), the shysters are out in full force at all times, especially at the tiny Huaraz bus terminals. We were accosted multiple times during our short stay in the city, mostly by kindly-seeming middle aged men attempting to hard-sell us tours of the Santa Cruz trek. We promptly turned them all down and walked around the city for a day and a half buying presents for our loved ones and eating some pretty delicious crepes. And we found a nice little tour agency from which we purchased a four-day tour with the help of three young Isreali women who did all the hard bargaining for us, and ended up getting us all a pretty good deal.

We began our excursion into the second-highest mountain range in the world early the next morning and spent the next few hours shuttling from combi to mototaxi (one covered with Nazi emblems that the Israelis suggested Astrid and I take instead of them) to vagon on some mountain roads on which I would be hesitant to drive the Sube, once accosted by youths with buckets of water aiming for gringos (travel tip: roll up your window on the road to the trailhead). Until arriving in a high valley to meet our burro driver slash prep cook and head into the heights.

The first day was a bit difficult, as we were acclimating to the insane altitude and there was quite a bit of elevation gain, but the weather was nice and we weren’t yet beaten down by the constant slog. And Freddy (como la pèlicula, dice Freddy) our guide was muy amable, if a bit reticent. He cooked us decent meals of various meats and rice throughout the trip, and always offered us a cup of coca tea as we arrived into camp grumpy and tired

On the second day we tromped across a partially flooded valley floor in the rain, getting our boots wet jumping over and sometimes falling in various streams, but flat ground, even soggy flat ground, was a nice change of pace. Until the sun came out and we started up the zig-zag (which is what Peruvians and Israelis call switchbacks) up to a very pretty and very icy glacial lake, into which I decided against Freddy’s advice to jump.

Hot stuff:

We camped a couple long hours later on another valley floor onto which the clouds opened up all night and we awoke to wet sleeping bags, but our bad moods were tempered by the constant kvetching of the Israeli girls. Their horrible attitudes in the face of dampness made our slight bemusement seem stoic and rugged.

And our third day was spent hiking up to a gorgeous mountain pass through rain and wind and slush and snow and slipping burros and fellow gringos. It was hard, but the view (and the friendly snowball fight) at the top made it worthwhile. The way down from the notch in the ridge made by our trail was a bit perilous, but our by now larger expedition made up of our crew, another tour group, and a couple of Quebecois that had initially attempted the trek on their own but had joined the other group in order to let the burros carry their heavy bits was in high spirits after the mountain pass. Until about four more hours had passed, at which point most of us were sore and a little blistery and ready for some of Freddy’s coca tea. It took another three hours, but we all made it, tired and wet and quite sick of telling the indigenous mountain children that no, we didn’t have any caramelos, lo siento.

We left the next day after hiking a short couple (vertical) hours out of the valley and back into civilization to take a long couple of combi rides into Huaraz. Astrid and I did absolutely nothing for the rest of the day with the exception of eating a dinner and watching half of Doubt. And we took another combi ride to one of the world’s dirtiest-looking swimming pools the next day, which was odd, but we had a great time goofing around in the private baths upstairs

And so, we hopped on a bus to Trujillo and then a taxi to Huanchaco where we’d reserved a room at the impressively named Hotel Internacional Huanchaco. We paid out the nose for this place but got our own little bungalow with a table outside to eat desayuno. It had a nice small pool, too, which we used a bit, but the place was a little far from the rest of Huanchaco, and the walk along the beach to the rest of the pueblito was marred by a monstrous decomposing sea lion carcass. So we moved lodging. To Naylamp, a sweet little place right on the beach with a burrito joint a few steps away and comfortable rooms and a grumpy staff and ondas muy tranquilas. Astrid and ended up staying in Huanchaco for four days just hanging out on the beach and eating ceviche and burritos and drinking copious amounts of Fanta. And I rented a surfboard from some jerks and performed miserably. But I’ll try again, someday.

And then Astrid left, which was very sad.

Huanchaco beach time:

I took off for Mancora the next day and found a little place with a rudely indifferent staff called La Posada where I could set up my tent in their yard for seven soles. Which I did, and spent the next few days alternating between the pool and the ocean and reading various novels. And again meeting up with Camille and Elsa and Aussie Rich. And chatting with a slightly odd and amazingly unlucky Michigander named Jackie.

The border crossing from Peru into Ecuador at Tumbes is notoriously bad, and I’d considered skipping Ecuador and just flying into Colombia from Peru to avoid it. But I managed to find some hidden well of determination and decided to bus it into Guayaquil with the kids. It was happily uneventful. But I was a tad sick during my day-long stay in Guayaquil (I didn’t actually leave my hostel for the duration), but felt great the next day when we headed North to a cute little berg called Cuenca, where we kept saying things like, “¡Dios, this place is bonita!”

We zipped back to Guayaquil to catch a bus to Puerto Lopez, where we marvelled at how unlike Cuenca it was, and how uncute. But we (actually Camille) patched together a jungle trek with a friendly knowledgeable local who showed us brightly-colored birds and a couple frogs and many crawlies and even a few monkeys. And Camille wowed us all with her devil-sticks routine. We showered the filth and bugs off and Rich and I drank some beer and we ate the World’s Most Satisfying Crepes that night, and the next morning headed for Manta and Montecristi, where I bought someone a hat.

I’m staying in ugly Manta for another day before heading to Quito and Riobamba to take the zigzaggy reversing train down a hole in a mountain. Or at least that’s what I’m told.

Your Faithful Intermittant Correspondant.