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Hola y bienvenida a mi Blog!!! Had a great past few days, including an awesome trip to Huacachina. Have also had my hands full with work, but for some reason we've got both Monday and Tuesday off, so I will no doubt be relaxing then!!
Digging Deep
On Friday morning Sarah, Miles and I returned to Maria's house to continue digging trenches for the foundations. That morning we had the maestro there to help us, which was useful as we weren't 100% sure how deep and wide the trenches needed to be. After about an hour of working two girls, Katie and Alex, turned up from another project which was cancelled. Since there were only so many trenches that needed digging we then decided to split into two groups, with the girls and the maestro digging trenches, whilst Miles and I brought the bricks that were delivered earlier in from the front. Maria had gone to the market earlier in the day, and was supposed to return to cook us lunch, however from what I understood she had an acciedent and had to go to the hospital, meaning after waiting until about 2pm we had to go into town and find a restaurant at which to eat. After a nice two course meal whilst watching some of the football, we headed back to the house. Sarah by this point had slipped away having felt a bit ill for the duration of the morning, so Miles went on trench digging duty whilst Carolina, Maria's daughter helped me move bricks. A few hours later we called it a day. Maria made us some pancake sandwiches and some papaya juice, which was really nice, then we headed home. Not much happened on Friday night, with the consensus being that we would save ourselves for a big weekend in Huacachina the next day. So at 7.30pm I settled in to have another go at reading a book in Spanish before going to sleep.
On Saturday morning, with Sarah still feeling a bit off and Miles needed on a different project, I took a new team to Maria's house of Peter, a new guy from Canada and Vicky, a fellow Brit who was weirdly enthusiastic about digging trenches!! We managed to get a fair bit of trench digging done in the three hours or so we were there, however we were fighting a losing battle as the maestro had to Jack-hammer a load of concrete from the adjacent wall, which filled up our nicely dug trenches with rubble. After we finished the maestro bought us all a beer and an Inca Kola (kind of like irn bru, but yellow!). I thought we were drinking them seperately, but apparently together they made a nice mix. They didn't. But nevertheless I drank some before heading back to the house.
Back to Huac!
After getting back and having shower, people started congregating at the house to go to Huacachina. Nine of us squashed into a taxi which took us to the bus stop. After an hour long bus ride we arrived at our hostel. This time we were in the main hostel, which wasn't a whole lot nicer than the Hostel we were in last time, but had the added attraction of a bar/nightclub about 20 metres away from our dorm. At the poolside bar downstairs I met a few brits who were staying at the hostel. It turned out that they were from Manchester and one of them lived about half a mile away from where I used to live!! Small world eh? After a couple of drinks we headed back to the restaurant we ate at last time. When we got back from the restaurant we joined up with a few more people including Lisa, who helped us to abuse the "all you can eat and drink for 20 soles" offer they had going at the bar, with her getting two pitchers of rum and coke for everyone. There were a few drinking games going on at another table including a rally loud, shouty one which ruined my vocal chords for the rest of the night. As the night progressed some of us got up onto the raised, stage-like area, then danced and generally made fools of ourselves. After another few hours of drinking and dancing I headed to bed. The music was still pretty loud in our dorm, but I was so tired and drunk it didn't really bother me!!
The next morning I woke up early for some reason... I dunno something about a football game... can't remember really, I'm sure it wasn't that important. Enough said. So anyway after crying my eyes out for an hour I joined everyone chilling by the pool for the rest of the morning. Later in the afternoon Sarah (now feeling much better despite drinking like a fish the night before!!) and I walked to the market for a quick look around. We then walked around the lake before spotting some pedalos, which we decided sounded fun, so we had 20 minutes cruising around the lake! When we got back to the hostel a small group of about ten of us got together to go sand boarding and buggy riding. It was a two hour long tour, in which they took us out into the desert in sand buggies, going over the dunes at mentally high speeds with sand and wind constantly blowing in your face, then dropping you off at good sand boarding spots before picking you up at the bottom and taking you to the next spot. I was pretty shakey at first, with me falling over a fair few times and full on face-planting into the sand once!! On about the third slope I really got the hang of it and sped down the dune. Unfortunately I hadn't got the hang of stopping by then and I fell on my backside at great speed, leaving a massive ass imprint in the sand!! After an hour and a half of sandboarding and with the sun setting behind the dunes, we headed back to the hostel again.
I Pity the Fool (who doesn't get KFC!!)
After a long shower, mainly spent fishing bits of sand out of my ears and nose, I went with another small group of people to the nearby city of Ica to go to the cinema to go and see the A-team movie. Needing to eat, my eyes lit up when I saw a KFC in the nearby food hall. We had a bucket of chicken with drinks and apple pie between five of us After a month of eating rice and lentils, this was the single greatest meal I have ever had!! With me fully satisfied we went to the cinema and watched the film. I enjoyed it a lot, although it was pretty ridiculous and silly. After heading back to the hostel, feeling quite sleepy after spending a couple of hours in a darkened room, I went to the dorm. There were quite a few peole there though, so I stayed up chatting for another couple of hours before going to sleep.
The next morning I woke up quite late, then after getting changed and signing out I went to the bamboo cafe for breakfast. I had a full english breakfast, which sounded amazing, but with poor quality sausages and beans, and with KFC still fresh in my memory, it failed to live up to expectations. After chilling at the cafe for a bit, we then went back to Pisco.
And that brings me to now!! Has been the best week of the trip so far, really enjoyed the weekend. Sorry the blog is getting a bit long, but I'm having the best fun ever and I could talk for hours about it!!! It's a Peruvian bank holiday-type-thing tomorrow and so we get another day off, during which I will try and attend the festival happening in the nearby town of San Andres. Will tell you all about it on my next blog. Until then adios!!
Tom x
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