30 Seconds Or Less

Last weekend we took our second trip around Peru. This time we went to Ica, it’s about 4 hours south of Lima by bus. Ica’s located in the desert so there wasn’t much to look at on the drive there. I mostly slept the whole way. We got to the resort we were staying at about one and almost everyone was hungry. We decided to go into town to go get food, I was not about to pay 50 soles for a meal at the resort, which in is only about 20 bucks, but the three dollar meal in town was just too good to pass up. We split into about four groups five for the taxi’s and headed for a shopping mall to eat. Too bad my group paid no attention to where we were supposed to go and ended up on the opposite side of town. We decided to just stay there and eat by ourselves. We went to a Chifa restaurant, which is basically Chinese food. We sat down, ordered our food and in maybe thirty seconds the food was already at our table. I don’t know if I should’ve been impressed or concerned that my rice and chicken was cooked in less than a minute. I ate it anyways and luckily I survived.

The restaurant we ended up at by accident

After having a bowl of mystery meat chifa we went back to the resort and all of us went to the pool. Instead of relaxing by the pool we decided to play water polo. Let me tell ya’, it got intense. I was told I went wild while playing and earned the title ‘the animal’, ‘The animal’s out of his cage’ I heard a couple of times. After the game of water polo I went sand boarding for the first time ever with a group of friends and it was a blast! The only thing that sucked is we had to climb up a huge sand dune to get to the top and by the time you were done climbing you were so worn out. But it was all worth it, the view was amazing, who knew sand could be so beautiful?? To top it all of I actually made it all the way down the dune without falling. After sand boarding we played soccer, our level of physical activity has surprised many Peruvians. Again, I heard ‘The animal’s out of his cage’, maybe that’s a sign to be a little less aggressive, nah.

Water Polo at the resort

The Animal

The next day we all went sightseeing to some islands in Paracas, which is about 1 hour away from Ica. It was another 40 minutes in boat to get to the islands, but it was worth it. We had to stay in the boat because there was nowhere to dock but the islands were amazing, every inch of the island was covered in birds, penguins, sea lions, and guana, which could be smelled a good distance away. There were so many sea lions and their babies, I thought we were going to crash into one! Like all of our tours it was multilingual. Before we got to the islands the guide went down the row asking everyone what they spoke. When he finally got to me, I was sitting by other americans, he looked at us and said ‘English?’, and in my best Peruvian accent I said in Spanish ‘No, I don’t know English’ to which he replied in Spanish ‘Me neither’ as serious as can be. I guess my accent is better than I thought. Although he even heard me speaking English. One we got back to the resort me and some friends went on a dune buggy ride. It was intense! It felt exactly like a roller coaster. At some points I honestly thought the dune buggy was going to tip over. It was well worth the money I paid, it even came with all the sand you could eat. After the ride I could fell sand in my mouth for hours. They need to start making scarves mandatory on this rides along with the goggles.

The island in Paracas

All those black dots are birds!

On the sand dunes

On the last day a big group of us went to a lagoon in town to go and check it out. We didn’t know it until we got there but they had row boats we could rent and take out on the lagoon. It was sweet! The boats fit four, and had space for two people to row with a grass roof. While rowing I kept feeling like I was in Egypt rowing down the Nile for the pharaoh, I even felt like a slave with all the work my friends were making me do. The landscape looked just like it. Our row boat was called the Titanic. I was a little skeptical about taking that one at first; I didn’t want to sink into the green water. Luckily we didn’t crash into any icebergs but it was the biggest coincidence while we were rowing, off in the distance we could hear somebody playing ‘My Heart Will Go On’ out of a radio, what are the odds of that!

The Lagoon