Trip to Ica

Today was dope. Morning, not so much. Only because I had to get up at 4 am and bring a suitcase full of my things onto the bus for our weekend away to Ica! It’s a solid 6-hour drive so sleep tight. Ok. So the morning was really rough. Bus leaves 5:30 am and I leave my apartment with about 10 minutes to spare. I was supposed to meet Kathleen at Parque Kennedy, but I totally, you know, messed up. She calls and sends a series of texts asking where I was. To say the least, she was completely pissed off. I don’t blame her. Because I was frantically running out the door of my apartment, I had forgotten to bring the damn directions to the bus stop. I’m already at Parque Kennedy and there’s no time to run back. I called Monica asking for directions and well that was basically useless because I had no idea at the time where things were in Miraflores. Signs were in Spanish and street names unfamiliar to me. I was in a load of trouble. I’m running up and down Ricardo Palma, sweating my face off. It felt like an episode of SpongeBob when him and Patrick were stranded in Rock Bottom. The streets were covered in fog and dim lighting. Jack the Ripper was Lima-bound. I was screwed. Monica calls me and luckily for me the bus had stopped right in front of Marathon – the athletic store at the corner of Ricardo Palma. I get on the bus. Everyone grilled me. I sit down and fetal position my way into sleep for the next 6 hours.

We finally arrive at the hotel in Ica. We drop off all of our belongings, and store them away. I purchase my first Inca Kola of the trip. This stuff tastes like bubblegum and I’m a fan. It’s so good. We make our way out to the small oasis town of Huacachina. Here was the fun part of the day. We would take dune buggies out to scour the vast deserts of Huacachina. Now, I didn’t know what to expect to be honest. Our driver drives our dune buggy around the lake of Huacachina and up a sand path beyond the horizon of the sand dunes. Over the horizon of the sand dune was this immense boundless desert of sand and dunes. Some dunes were about 50 feet above the ground. The drive steps on the pedal and the buddy hauls. You could feel the suspensions of the buggy bouncing and whipping as we speed through the open desert. This was actually scary because the buggy felt unstable. Oh crap, here we go. We arrive at our first dune. A very small one but it was steep. We drop and immediately I could feel a very familiar yet disturbing feeling in my stomach. Oh, it felt like a drop on a roller coaster. It was the g-force. I hate g-force. And I hate roller coasters. At that moment, I knew I was in a world of trouble. I thought I was going to die. Screw this. No one told me. Oh, well. I got to suck it up. So I did the one thing anyone would have done in my position – I pulled out my phone and start recording.

After a series of ups and downs, we arrive at the very top of this sand dune about 50 feet in the air. We pull up and our drivers pull out something that looked like snowboards. This was freaking awesome. We were going to sandboard down the dunes. Oh except I’m deathly afraid of heights too. What the hell was I doing on this trip? All of us were instructed to lay on our bellies and go down the dune that way. I felt a little better because I thought we were supposed to stand which definitely wouldn’t be a good idea for beginners like me. I get strapped in and ready to go. The guy shoves me down and I’m hauling. It wasn’t bad at all. If anything underwhelming. Leaving me wanting more kind of like my ex-girlfriend. I got riled up. Next dune I’m standing. And that’s exactly what I did and I did pretty well. I totally shredded my way down. It was fun. It was a good time.

After boarding, we make our way back to the small oasis town of Huacachina to take some pictures and listen to the legend of the Huacachina Lake. I’ll have to find the legend somewhere but I’ll be sure to post it here once I do. Meanwhile, look it up.

We leave Huacachina and head to a winery and basically got lit there. Next stop was an old witch town where witches performed rituals and things. Odd stop because I was freaking out. Coincidently, we would leave the witch town to go to a famous church in Ica. I cleansed myself of evil witch spirits and any voodoo the kids put on me there.

Later that evening, we return to the hotel. We had the option to room with a person so I decided to hop in a room with John Goodyear – he’s Italian if you couldn’t tell by his very Italian last name. He’s also from the Jersey Shore. We get to our rooms and the first John and I decide to do is to change into our bathing suits and jump into the hotel pool. Oh man that was refreshing. We hang out there with a few people before I headed back up to shower to get ready for the rest of the night at karaoke. It was a good time.