Its like shooting womp-rats on Tatooine...

If anyone gets that reference, you´re truly a nerd. I met up with Thom without a hitch, and we immedately left Lima for Ica, then off to Huacachina. Well, when I say we left immediately, we really just said, `Dude, Lima´s not that great. Let´s get out of here and head to the desert.´ Just like that, we hopped into a cab and not 30 minutes later, we were on a bus to Ica. Let me first say, unlike the US busses, the Peruvian busses are 20 times better. They have nice seats, they don´t smell, and they leave on time. Uhhh...last time I checked, Greyhound still took 5 hours to get from DC to Philadelphia and the chinatown busses were still leaving whenever they wanted to.

Driving to Ica is bascially driving through the middle of nowhere desert. As soon as you get outside the Lima city limits, you´re surrounded by desert. We basically saw the same sandy desert for 5 hours down to Ica, with a few villages along the way. What I don´t get is what these people do in the villages - I mean, we´re talking desert here. There weren´t any oil drills, so what exactly do you do there, and more importantly WHY are you there unless you´re trying to hide Luke from Darth Vader or a crazy man named Old Ben Kenobi. Unless they´re all Sand people, then all bets are off...

In any case, we get to Ica which is a hole of a town, and head straight to our final destination - Huacachina. Now, Huacachina is basically a lagoon in the middle of the desert. It looks like it came straight out of Aladdin. We get there at night, and we don´t realize how far out you are from civilization. You just see this lagoon and a grassy area around it, with a few hostels and restaurants. We end up picking the most jumpin hostel and check in - friggin $8 a night. You can´t beat that. Everyone is smoking up in the court yard and looking like smelly, granola backpackers. Don´t get me wrong, they´re interesting people, but once they broke out the drum circle in the middle of dinner, Thom and I both thought we might be a little too old for this crowd.

The next morning we went dune buggying and sandboarding. Now, when they say that in the desert, sand gets everywhere, they mean EVERYWHERE. I still have sand in my ears, and this was almost 2 days ago. And don´t get me started on the sand accumulation in the showers or in my shorts pockets....Anyways, we head out to the dunes, any any vision that you have of the desert is exactly how this little trip looking. Sand....check. Dunes....check. Oasises (Oasies?)....check. Aladdin could have flown in on his magic carpet ride singing about being Prince Ali, and he wouldn´t have been out of place. So, our dune buggy driver decides to take us all over the dunes first, so we´re riding up 100 foot high dunes at 40mph, sand kicking up everywhere, and like a bunch of dumb tourists, we´re loving it. I took a movie of it, but you´ll just have to wait until I load it up on YouTube when I get home to truly appreciate it. We get to our first sandboarding stop, and let me just say, I have no experience on a board, let alone on sand. So like any idiot, I strap in and head down the biggest hill we´re offered. I am proud to say, beyond a bruised and sandy ass, I came out without a scratch.

We get back into town, and head out to check out some bodegas to see where they make Pisco, the national drink. Nothing really interesting here except that they make Pisco (with grapes though) the same way we make whiskey. Funny to think you travel this far to see people making booze the same way. Makes you question the world, or at least makes you realize everyone likes to knock some back.

I´ll add in more about Huacachina, which I loved, but needelss to say, we had a great time. We´re now in Ariqupa getting ready to go whitewater rafting tomorrow, and climbing up a volcano on Monday and Tuesday. Check out Thom´s blog for another take on this trip - www.gogothom.blogspot.com.