I guess you could say that ever since my arrival in Lima, Peru, I have been kind of confused. A good confusion, excellent, I'd say. Probably the best confusion one can even experience, the disorder and slight chaos of experiencing something new and exciting. The fresh feeling of a new culture with new people and lifestyles. But mostly the language, that's what confuses me the most. I was sat next to a very nice woman on the plane, who lived in Lima. I just remember thinking "Man, if everyone in Peru is as nice as her, life will be great!" I have a hard time sleeping on planes, but I managed to nod off a few times. One of those times being when a man came by with immigration papers, of which the woman seated next to me grabbed for me while I was dancing with father time. After getting off of the plane, it was left to me to figure out where the hell I needed to go. All signs are in Spanish from here on out, though luckily immigration is very similar in both English and Spanish! God bless English's melting pot attitude. It was definitely a refreshing sight to see Harrison waiting on me after customs with a sign reading "Zoe." A nice reunion for sure! Shortly after finding Harrison in the airport, we met up with Victor, who offered to house us for the night. Though before leaving the airport, we had to pick up one last traveler, a man named Lei, originally from China, studying in New York, and going down to Argentina in a month. The bus ride to Victor's was one of my favorite experiences so far, honestly. Nothing can compare to the very first time you are thrust into something new. And that bus ride? So new for me! I've never seen a service run like it was, but now it is very common to me. Imagine a semi - worn down van, filled with 4 rows of very crowded benches, and a man hanging out of an open door shouting locations and prices in Spanish. Excellent welcome to Peru, I think. My stay in Lima was 90% in Victor's house with his family, which was excellent. According to Harrison, his house was one of the nicest he'd seen in Peru. Which I believe now! It had stories on stories, to house the people on people that composed his family. And his dogs, of which I only saw two, but they were as sweet as can be. Dogs roam the streets around here, I love it. I have yet to see any dog that looks the same, yet they are all beautiful. Albeit a little dirty. Though I find that to be a good descriptor of Peru in general; beautiful if not a little dirty. Harrison, Lei, and I stayed the night at Victor's, arriving at his house at around 1 in the morning thanks to my and Let's late flight, and the next morning enjoyed the awesome instant coffee that Peruvian ' drink with the two matriarchs of the family. The grandmother was sweet as can be, though the communication was difficult. Communication in general for me is very difficult down here, I'm glad Harrison knows at least a little bit of Spanish. That's something that I need to work on more, though I'm picking up a little bit, one at a time. I have yet to have the opportunity to practice though, Harrison's been doin' all the talking, god bless him! From Victor's, Harrison and I took the bus to Ica, where we have been staying for the past couple of days. Though we didn't stay in Ica very long after arriving there, taking a taxi to Huacachina soon after.
I could spend forever talking about Huacachina. Huacafuckingchina!!! We were initially wandering around the small oasis, plopping ourselves down on the most picturesque spot on the beach, with a gorgeous view of the sunset in front of us. Harrison ran off for a bit to find us a beer or two, life was good. The sun was setting on the sand dunes in front of us, cold beer sat between us, lying down on the sand on our packs listening to the sound of the water and the life around us, watching two dogs play behind us... It was gorgeous. And then the impossible happened! Chill mode was fully engaged when we hear a "NO FUCKING WAY!" behind us, and turning around, it was two New Zealanders that Harrison had met a few days prior in Huaraz, what are the chances? We had some fun with those guys that night for sure. Funny, because in the time between Harrison and them finding each other, they had both picked up people. Me being one of them, and the New Zealanders' Scottish friends had just arrived. They wanted to get some dinner, so even though we had already eaten, we joined them and had some drinks at the restaurant. I got to try pisco sour, which was excellent. I can't wait to try authentic pisco! The waiter during dinner was absolutely hilarious, he knew how to appeal to tourists for sure. Because he was so chill and cool with us we thought we could try and ask him about good ol Mary Jane, and he went off on some spiel about some bar and "huacafuckcingchina!" Leaving the restaurant, we sought out a bar for some drinks and very shortly on our journey around the oasis we see a giant sign that reads "HUACAFUCKINGCHINA" and we all just about died, none of us thought that it was a real place! So what was our next course of action? To get absolutely shitfaced of course! I remember dancing with our waiter, and at some point a guy from across the room buying us all more drinks and starting a rousing game of slaps with the ENTIRE bar, basically. Don't know what slaps is?
What's the name of the game? SLAPS!
What's the goal of the game? TO GET FUCKED UP!
And we definitely did!
The rest of the night is kind of a blur, and I woke up the next morning on the side of a sand dune, stuffed into a sleeping bag with Harrison, and both of us were absolutely drenched in sand. Solid night, I must say.
From huacachina, we headed back into Ica. Our lovely host Werther didn't get off work until 4, so Harrison and I wandered around Ica for most of the day. The food here is stellar, I must say. Chifa especially! Chifa basically just means Asian food here, and it's wonderful. Much like the Chinese food in the states is americanized, the Chifa here has some good ol Peru on it. It's mostly a thai influence, and it's muy bien. (I hope I used that in the right context!) Meeting up with Werther, we then went to his house. Of which we had full reign! Werther had unfortunately gone through a divorce, which consequently left his house empty, so he now uses it to house his little couch surfers. An excellent use of the space if you ask me. Werther is an interesting guy, and the only other person I've ever met in person that listens to Beyond Creation. I'm glad that we could share our music tastes, he has a very nice collection of death metal CD's and records back at his house. After staying the night there, Harrison and I woke up and immediately headed to Nazca to see the muy importante Nazca lines. It was a two and a half hour bus ride there to spend a mere couple of hours in the town, but it was so worth it. Upon arriving we really had no way of getting up in the plane, but as luck would have it the very first man we talked to was cousins of some people who flew the planes, and he drives us to the mini airport and sent us on our way. The Nazca lines were absolutely gorgeous. I can't even imagine the dedication it took for the ancient people's to move all of those rocks out of the way to make those intriguing patterns in the sand. I'm glad they did though, even if the plane ride made me nauseous as hell. Who knows of they were trying to communicate with aliens, the patterns themselves are a massive feat that definitely needs to be appreciated. As Harrison put it, "the desert is a slow moving ocean!" which just makes the fact that these lines have stayed true despite the test of time even more mind boggling. My mind has been boggled by almost everything I have seen, and I love it. I've only been here for a few days, but I feel like I have fallen in love with the place. I love Ica, all the metal heads I have met there, and really all of the people and the sights. I can't wait to explore Arequipa!
Spider
Adios!
-Zoe
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