The Sand Lot

Wow what a weekend! We had a very exciting and very tiring trip to Peru´s coast to visit Ica, Nazca and the islands. I´m going to split this into 3 entires for each of the days since there was so much that we did!

Friday started with our placements. It was my last day in the health clinic. I really did love working there, and I learned tons, but I just didn´t feel like I was serving the community. I felt like I was just feeding my own curiousity. On Friday morning I discovered the magical world of the lab. This was very exciting for me! I always loved chemistry and biology, so this was all pretty cool work to me. The lab tech spoke just a tiny bit of English, and since I speak just a tiny bit of Spanish, we were able to somewhat communicate. I really liked him a lot. He taught me how to do all sorts of tests, and I even ran a bunch on my own after a few hours. We ran blood tests, urine tests, pregnancy tests, hemoglobin counts, blood typing, HIV tests, TB tests, you name it. I was really excited to get to do this. I even drew blood twice on my own! I think my hands weren´t the steadiest in the world, but I tried and I did it!

After lunch, the nine of us piled into our little mini-bus for our 8 hour drive to the coast. Have you ever listened to every song on your iPod? Yeah, I have now. It was long, but at least we had some beautiful scenery. We also had our first llama sighting! I was so giddy about this. They are the funniest animals! Love them.

We arrived in our first town, Ica, around 9:00 that night after the long drive and a slight delay due to a flat tire. I didn´t fully realize where we were until daylight the next morning. When we woke up and stepped out of our hotel, I realized that we were literally surrounded by sanddunes. It was incredible. Ive never seen anything like it. Just huge mountains of sand. We were in the small oasis town, which we later got a good view of from the top of the dunes.

After breakfast, we loaded into dune buggies to tackle the sand. The dune buggies alone were worth the trip. So much fun! It was like being on a rollar coaster with no track in the middle of the desert. After a few minutes of driving we came to a stop and the edge of one of the huge hills. We got out and the sand boards appeared from the back of the trucks. Um, you want me to go down that? The girl with no balance, who has never so much as skiied in my life? Yeah.

Down went the first person (we made the guys go first). I bravely enough was one of the first girls to step up to the plate. I grabbed my board, which basically looked like a snowboard sort of thing, laid down on my stomach, grabbed onto it, and before I could second guess myself, the tour guide pushed me down and off I went. It was amazing! Huge adrenaline rush! Not scary at all, just fun. Think extreme sledding, but in the sand not snow. We got to do it four times. Each hill was bigger and faster than the previous. We took tons of pictures and got back to the hotel around 11 to shower. I think I still have sand in my backpack from that day (sorry, Matt :o)).

We left at lunchtime to visit a winery. They specialized in Pisco, which is a local brandy type liquor. Its very strong! We tried a few kinds, and also some wine from the vineyards. Next we traveled to visit a real live witch doctor (on Halloween!). It was really neat, but I have to say I expected some feathers or robes or something. He looked like he just walked out of the local mall, but still, it was cool.

We next drove about 2 hours to Nazca. We spent the evening there and saw the local niños and niñas in their Halloween costumes. It was an early night because we had to get up early the next day for the Nazca lines....

To be continued...