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Haphazard Travels, Tribulations, and Triumphs
Hello again, hopefully this update will get through. The stupid computer crashed last night just as I updated the page. Argh! Of course, though. Okay, so what all as been happening. Well, I am now in Nazca. But first, let me back up to Pisco. Pisco was amazing. The hostal I stayed at was very nice and I manaed to find a great tour for the boat ride out to the Isle Ballestas, also known as the poor man's Galapogos. You'll have to once again excuse the funny punctuation, the keyboards are different in each place and the keys are half worn off of this one. No enter key either, apparantly. Anyways the Isles Ballesta were amazing. Tonnes of irds, endangered penguins, and sea lions. I have many pictures, which you will all have to wait to see because I forgot my camera cord at home. Test acked twice, and I still forgot that damn thing! Oh well. Trust me, great pics, gorgous day. Then it was onto a minibus to Ica. On the bus I met two other Canadians, the first North Americans I have met so far actually. We split a cab from Ica to Huacachina. Huacahina is a resort town just outside of Ica. It is a small oasis surrounded by massive sand dunes. I mean these things are over 50 stories high! The big deal in Huac. Is that you can go sand boarding and ride in dune buggirs. Turns out a group was heading out about an hour after we arrived and I decided to join them. It was amazing. Over 2 hours of blasring around a desert in a dune buggy and then sandboarding, like snowboarding, down dunes. I was with a bunch of skaters and boarders, so besides the two older Brits, I was the crappy one of the group. But I made up for it by deciding to tobaggon down the steeest longest pitch, about black diamond in steepness. I got a running start and jumped down the hill, quickly accelerating to about 30 km. I tried to only stick in my feet to keep myself straight, but near the bottom, I spun to one side, rolled, and summersaulted through the air at least twice before hitting again and summersaulting some more. They ended up cracking out the emergency water to help me wash off. I finally got the last of the damn sand off of me in the third shower I had. It was terrific. Then after a late dinner I was walking along the lagoon and noticed the stars so I spent some time stargazing and thinking that tthat map of the stars of the southern hemisphere we used when we went stargazing when I was a kid might actually have been handy for me here. Ha! But that gave me the idea to... Mom, stop reading here, sneak out of the hostal, they all lock atr night, and climb up the sand dunes the next morning to watch the sun rise. So I did. Turns out they left a gate unattended! Hehe! The best part was climbing up the sandunes in the dark. Unfortunately, the morning mist never lifted and I spent a couple hours wandering the desert before finally deciding to wander back down. Okay mom start reading again. Then it was off to Ica, where I visted a museum of culture and history which had many mummies and examples of head deformaton whioch I found fascinating, especially copared to the examlpes I have seen from the NW coast. Very different. Coneheads actually. Then it was get the heck out of Ica, a noisy, unapealing town, then a 7 sol bus to Nazca. Now I am in Nazca and I have booked a flight over the lines tomorrow. These are the massive lines in the desert. Then tomorrow night it is a nice and unfortunately expensiove night bus to Arequipa! Then hiking in the Canon Del Colca! Oh, and food wise, I have now tried Inca Kola, the local pop, which is, unsurprisingly, gold colored. It took me a little bit, but it is just cream soda!
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