Back on land, the four of us left Nasca for Ica the same day, a much shorter bus ride. We ended up staying in a little oasis outside of Ica (as it is a rather unimpressive town) called Huacachina. surrounded by high sand dunes, the oasis is complete with a pond, palm trees, and some really good bars. our hostel itself had a pool, hammocks, a capuchin monkey, lots of parrots, and a tiki bar where jimmy the bartender made us homemade pisco sours! The next day we spent lounging around the pool reading, and in the evening we went out to the dunes in a dune buggy to sandboard. i'm pretty crap at sports, but i figured i wouldn't get terribly injured and it was really fun! we went down most hills on our stomachs, they were both long and steep and when i got to the bottom of a few i thought i was going to keep going and shoot off another dune. the not fun part was having every crevice filled with sand. i couldn't get it out of my right ear for the next three days! our driver spun us around the dunes while cassidy pretended she was on a roller coaster ride, and we stopped to watch the sunset before taking one last run down the biggest dune right outside of huacachina. On the 11th we enjoyed our last meal at Bananas, an outdoor bar and lounge that made massive fruit salads and fresh juices, before we went out on a wine and pisco tour. Ica is Peru's "wine country" though because of climate and location is really more apt to produce the famous pisco brandy. Besides a chocolate "tejas" factory, we visited two bodegas, one artesanal where we were allowed to stomp grapes with the workers, and one modern bodega, Vista Alegre, that does produce a few dry wines - a Malbec/Cabernet Sauvignon blend, a Chenin Blanc/Pedro Ximenez blend, and a rosé made from their pisco grape. The wine certainly wasn't on par with Chilean wine, but was decent, and Peruvians do have a leg up on the pisco production, which they maintain originated in Peru, not in Chile, as Chileans would have you believe. It is a debate worth examining in depth, so bring on the samples!
From Ica we wound up the coast to Lima, which may be the largest sprawling city i've seen so far. the neighborhoods are just huge, but we were lucky enough to be in Miraflores, an upbeat nice area with lots of hostels, bars, shopping, etc. Besides all the shopping and eating well, we spent a day in the center of Lima. The coolest place we checked out was the San Francisco monastery and catacombs. the monastery was extensive, and really interesting though the catacombs underneath were not so fresh smelling. The library was gorgeous, with handpainted texts and choral books done by the monks themselves, and in the dining hall was a painting of the Last Supper with all the apostles eating peruvian cuisine...even guinea pig!! by the way, we did not end up trying that highly rated cuisine. ick! In some restaurants they let you pick the little "cuy" you want out of the guinea pig pen.
Since Lima we have been beach hopping (it's a hard knock life...). We spent a week in Huanchaco, Peru, eating snow cones drenched in natural fruit juices (coconut, lemon, passion fruit, mango) and eating spicy and delicious ceviche in outdoor cafes. Now, we did also take a cultural detour to check out the ruins of local Moche and Chimu indians. The Moche built two pyramids (called huacas de la luna and el sol) that were filled with the remains of religious and political leaders. As these people died, a new level would be added to the pyramid, making it taller. Honestly you probably wouldn't look at these Huacas and think "pyramid," they really just look like giant mud hills, but under a thin layer of this fine mud remains some amazing artwork, still vibrant and very evocative. What I found the most amazing were the depicitions of sea life, crabs, catfish, manta rays, pelicans, octupi, and more assorted fish. It was all so beautiful, and so completely different than the ruins we have seen in southern peru. We also visited Chan Chan, a complex of 9+ cities built entirely out of mud by the Chimu people. The preserved and restored art we saw there was also very impressive, and beside the fact that they were able to well for fresh water in the middle of the desert, i thought it was amazing that when each of their kings died, they would close down the citadel they had built and the new king would build another one.
Right before left Peru we spent another few days in Mancora, Peru, a surfing hotspot. At the end of the first day we were there, there was even a surf competition! And we made friends with a local fruit man and feasted on juicy mangos, entire coconuts and big chunks of ripe watermelon. it was heavenly. We were rather sad to leave, understandably, but we were really excited about getting to Ecuador. After an exquisite and oh-so-comfortable 15 hour travel day in buses, Cassidy and I arrived in Vilcabamba, Ecuador. Vilcabamba used to be controlled by the Inca, and was the supposed site of the fountain of youth. We stayed at a superb resort hostel called Hosteria Izhcayluma, which cost $9 USD a person and included buffet breakfast, a laguna pool, movie room, and had the world's cheapest spa treatments available. On our first day we hiked through the neighborhood, took some bikes out to roll around the town, swung in hammocks reading, and finished the day with facials, and a hair mask. On our second day we decided to do a full day horseback riding tour of Vilcabamba and the Podocarpus National Park and cloud forest.
At 9AM a guide picked us up and brought us in to town where we mounted up, I was on Pálido, Cassidy on Tequila (heh). we rode for 2 hours up into the mountains, our poor horses were panting by the time we reached the national park limits. The region is so lush and green, and fat, happy cows meander all over the hillsides chomping grass and lounging. The view was amazing, and when we dismounted we started on a 2 hour hike down to check out a couple waterfalls. they had told us at the hostel that the tap water was safe to drink because it came straight from this park, and i even drank straight from the stream while we stopped for lunch. the water was clear and very fresh. After lunch our guide Alvaro turned sadist and made us climb up the mountain to get a view of the waterfall from above. after 25 minutes of hanging from slippery tree roots and bamboo shoots, we made it to the top. When we made it back to our horses we had another 3 hours of riding to get back to Vilcabamba. We crossed the river a bunch of times, cantered through shady paths and generally had a wonderful, though exhausting ride. I felt like both my kneecaps had been broken by the time we dismounted, but it was so worth the muscle aches!
After Vilcabamba we spent a night in Cuenca, where we essentially shopped and ate chocolate, and now we are back at the beach, having just arrived in Montañita, Ecuador. The water here is even warmer and calmer than the beaches in peru, and our hostel looks right over the ocean. We are truly blessed.
#1: the Astronaut geoglyph in Nasca, Peru
#2: me trying to sandboard
#3: stomping pisco grapes in Ica
#4: vibrant artwork at Huaca de la Luna
#5: the crowd and the tótora reed boats in Huanchaco