The Desert Oasis

Today I am bed-blogging from my bunk bed in Cusco. Unfortunately James and I are both feeling the effects of a couple hard nights of partying followed by an 18 hour bus ride, and we’ve both acquired colds. Our fingers are crossed that we get healthy fast for the upcoming trek to Machu Picchu.

Since the last post, we arrived safely in the huge city of Lima where we spent a couple days poking around. Lima I find to be much more pleasant than Ecuador’s capital city Quito. The streets are much cleaner and smell nicer, there are some very picturesque areas of town such as the Plaza de Armas (pictured below) and the people are very cheerful and friendly.

The next stop on our journey was in the middle of the desert in a small resort town called Huacachina. The town is literally built around a desert oasis – with palm trees and a small lake included and is surrounded by high sand dunes. We ended up spending 4 days in Huacachina and activities included a wine tour (hence the hard partying), sand boarding, and lounging around the pool in the hot desert sun. Believe it or not, thus far we have not encountered any hot weather in South America (the weather has been comfortable, but not hot), so the warmer air was much appreciated.

The sand boarding was fun; the best way to describe it is that its like snowboarding  on really sticky wet snow.

But by far the most fun part of sandboarding was not the activity itself, but getting to and from the dunes. 10 of us rode in a big dune buggy with huge suspension and clearance, and the driver was an absolute maniac. When he saw some terrain that he liked, he puts the pedal to the metal and charges at it like a raging bull. We cruised back and forth across the dunes using them like jumps, rollers, and even a halfpipe. For the grand finale our driver took us down a huge hill until we were at the fastest speed possible, and then we hit a huge arc-shaped dune that sent the entire dune buggy airborn for what felt like a full second. It was incredible.

One other thing I have to mention can only be described by photo. The picture says it all (Yes, that is Jordan on the left).

Now James and Jordan are getting ready for their Inca Trail trek which leaves on October 7. The trek takes 4 days and finishes off at Machu Piccu. I, on the other hand, wasn’t able to book a spot on the trek with them (the spots filled up about 3 months ago), so I am going to go shopping and see if I can do one of the alternate treks to Machu Picchu. The next blog update will fill you in on how that goes.

I have had zero access to internet for the last week or so, so I apologize if I have been slow in replying to emails. I am going to get to them asap. Also, our NFL survivor pool took an interest twist when Jame’s risky Arizona Cardinals pick took a nose dive two weeks ago. Jordan and I are still both strikeless, but if James takes one more strike he will be sporting a brand new friar cut. And you can bet the photo will be up on this blog. All were safe last week since we all took Green Bay over Denver. Til next time.