Passing Through Peru: Sandboarding in Huacachina

I love adventures, but l’m not much into extreme sports. I usually stick to scuba diving and freediving, but on my way back to Lima for my flight home I stopped in Huacachina to try sandboarding.

Amazing sunset in Huacachina. Photo captured March 2014

Huacachina is a very small village,  with just a few hotels built around a small lake on the edge of the sand dunes. To get there you need to take a taxi from the nearby town of Ica. I arrived in Ica after taking the bus alone from Arequipa, and I walked up to the first gringo I saw. The conversation went something like this:

Me: “Hi, are you headed to Huacachina?”

Gringo boy: “Yep, wanna share a cab?”

Me: “Yea, sounds good.”

Yes kids, sometimes it is just that easy to make friends abroad. It could also have something to do with the fact that he was Canadian. I swear, I find them all! Rick and I ended up staying at the same hostel, and met several people in our hostel that we went sandboarding with! It wasn’t free like my other activities but it was well worth the $13 US for an afternoon adventure! We were going to sand board five hills! Its like snowboarding, but you don’t have to freeze your butt off! And once again, not going to kill my already bad knee. Sounds good eh?

Photo Captured March 2014

The ride out was fantastic! Wind blowing, sand flying, and the high pitch non-stop laughing I do when I’m doing something fun that could possibly kill me! We arrived at our first hill and I felt a sense of pride when the guide asked me to go first. Although they spoke broken English, I was the only one in the group that had attempted to talk to them in Spanish, thus I was the only name they knew. He instructed me to lay on the board on my stomach, and just fly down! It was awesome!

Gringo boy, Rick, and I.

We jumped back in the buggy and on to the second hill! That’s when I realized that the sand irritated my skin (I had stupidly worn shorts). After the third hill, I realized that when flying down the hill any part of my body that spills off the side will feel like it’s rubbing sandpaper very quickly. I’m also not a small girl, so this happened a lot. I had a plan for the fourth hill! I would stay balanced on the board, and enjoy the ride! Once again I was playing with sand paper. By the time I got to the fifth hill I was done, but thought, “One more try and I won’t hurt myself!” Nope. The sand rubbed off my tan on the front of my thighs, and it took months before it stopped looking like I had a skin disease.

Do you find it easy to make friends while traveling?

Thanks for the sand roller coasters Peru, but I was just passing through!

The incident in Sucre: Will I ever recover?

I did something incredible today. It was a very big step and I didn’t think I could do it but I did.

I ate a Mango.

The truth is that I haven’t been able to stomach the thought of eating a mango since ‘the incident.’

The year was 2014, middle of February, and I was in the beautiful city of Sucre, Bolivia. I walked through the city with sun beams reflecting off the white painted buildings, to this wonderful market place. There were amazing fruit stands where you could get any flavor smoothie you wanted for about 4 Bolivianos (60 cents US); strawberry, banana, coconut, mango, orange, any fruit made fresh right before your eyes. I gorged myself on my favorite, mango and cream. I was so happy that I wanted to take some fruit back to my hostel, and quickly picked out two ready to eat peaches. I was going to leave but something caught my eye, a nice big beautiful mango. I walked away knowing I had been ripped off or “paid the gringo price” but I didn’t care, I had the perfect snack waiting for me. Later in the afternoon I began slicing my mango preparing it for a smoothie. I sampled bits as I cut more and more of the mango. I got about half way when I cut and noticed a small hole, and seconds later I saw something poke out of the hole. Oh god no, please NO. Don’t let that be a maggot! It was.

Enjoying my last fruit smoothie in Sucre, Bolivia

Markus in the market in Sucre, Bolivia

The guys that I’d become friends with (we were sort of like a frat for about a week) happened to be in the Gringo’s Rincon kitchen with me and were delighted to further dissect my mango. They named the creature Beatrice and even found her a lover, naming him Prince Philip. I was repulsed. Later that week Max took it upon himself to “cure my fear of mangos’ before it became a problem and in an inebriated state smeared half a Mango on my face while yelling at me to eat it. He later found a baby spider living in his pomegranate, when he was almost finished eating it.

I wasn’t cured of my fear of mangos then, and to be honest I’m not sure if I am now. I ate it, but couldn’t enjoy it like I used to. I hope someday I will.

Thanks for smoothies Bolivia, but I was just Passing Through!

Have you ever had a terrible food incident abroad? Did you ever recover or did it scar you for life?

If you are interested in this crazy crew I hung out with in Bolivia, here is video. It explains a lot, but I’m warning you it’s not my best behavior!

Hello blog, its been a while..

I started this blog so I could keep my friends updated on where I was going and what what I was doing in South America, and letting them know I hadn’t been kidnapped and sold into the sex trade (yes that was a real worry for some.) I quickly learned that although having a smart phone was incredibly convenient for checking email and Facebook, writing out a blog sucked. It only took one accidental post delete for me to call it quits. Come on, stop judging, I had coffee plantations to tour and ancient ruins to climb!

I made it through all of my travels in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia safely and returned home to start my adventure in Alaska. People often ask me “How was backpacking in South America?” I end up giving the short answer, “It was great! Loved it, hope to go again someday.” But there is so much more. How can I express how amazing my experiences were? How much it changed me? And perhaps, ever so slightly, how I might have changed it? And do you really want to know?

So thats a long one, and I promise I will get back to it. For now, yea South America was great!

Heading out

I’ve been called crazy, brave, stupid,a nomad, a free-spirt, and at this moment I’m all of those. I’m leaving in the morning to a place I’ve never been, and I couldn’t be more excited and completely terrified. As tradition would have it, I’ve been up all night desperately trying to fit more underwear into the main compartment of my bag. My Corbyshark is on skype from Canada, trying to help me out!

 

Skype with Corbyshark

 

Check back in soon, I’ll be fine tomorrow in South America!