Don't Drink Water From the Tap and Don't Flush Toilet Paper Down the Toilet: 5/20

Our day today began very early, we all had to be by Parque Kennedy (our regular meeting spot) at 5:30 am. Miraflores is very cool at 5/5:30 am, there’s a strong fog that feels like a mist. About 5 taxis asked us (me and Carson) if we needed rides on our way to the meeting spot in classic Peruvian fashion which consists of honking at us until we notice them. The ride to Ica was about 4 hours and most of us slept on the way. This was our first time traveling out of Lima, which is one province/state of Lima and into Ica. During the ride we drove by a lot of farm land and poorer areas. It was interesting to see how some people in Peru live. In Lima, specifically Miraflores, there isn’t much that is different from the U.S. (other than the title of this blog), but some of these other areas look like they are part of an under-developed country. The city that we are staying in in Ica is nice, but not as nice as Miraflores. There’s more poverty and stray dogs.

After checking into our hotel, we went on a desert adventures tour at Huacachina. Huacachina is mostly a desolate desert, except for one lake, where an oasis exists. Huacachina is very beautiful and we took bugui ride tours and went sand boarding in the sand dunes! The bugui ride tours were intimidating at first because the driver would speed around and go up and down the dunes very quickly which made us fly into the air (yes mom, we were wearing seatbelts, don’t worry), but they ended up being a lot of fun. The view from the top of the dunes was so beautiful, and I included some pictures of it below. Sand boarding was also a little intimidating at first. It’s kind of like sledding, but going down face first and using your feet as brakes. You could also try to stand up on the board, like snow boarding, but that was too much for me.

After the bugui rides, we had lunch at “el Catador” which is right next to the winery which we toured after lunch. We learned about the wine making process and then tasted the wines. The wines were good, some were very sweet and some were not. My favorite wine we tasted was called “Divorce Wine.” This wine is called this because it is sweet at the beginning and then sour at the end. As well as tasting wine, we also tasted pisco which is a popular Peruvian drink. Pisco is very strong, and after tasting several different piscos, many of us felt a slight buzz, but that still wasn’t the end!

After the winery we went on a city tour and saw the Brujas de Cachiche Town tour and visited the 7 Heads Palm Tree. This palm tree dips in and out of the ground several times. The locals have theories about why it does that but no one really knows.

Finally, after that we went back tot the hotel. We were on our own for dinner so many of us, myself included, went to a pizza place because we were all craving some American food.

The last activity after that was karaoke! We all took different taxis to the karaoke place and met Monica there! We danced and sang until about 2 in the morning! I gave everyone the pleasure of hearing me rap Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice.

My favorite activities of the day were definitely the desert adventures tour at Huacachina and the karaoke!