Pisco is a small port town in the desert, but really destertic with dunes and intense heat. The coast is nice and the nights are cool. We were only there a day and a night, but long enough to know the town. We detoured to the National Park of Paracas, which is also a coastal desert town, very, very barren, but for some reason attracts many, many seabirds on it´s peninsula and archipelago off the coast, thus attracting many tourists too. We admired from afar, as we are not tourists. Then we headed further south to the dust dunned town of Ica, which is really in the desert (reminds me of Marrakesh, Morocco, with Atlas Mountains in the distance and the dunes encroaching upon the city). But the dunes here don´t seem to be a concern, only the Paracas (same as the park) which means "rain of sand," which we were so fortunate not to have seen. In Ica we walked around, visited a small oasis/village of Huacachina that is literally an oasis hidden in the dunes (I took pictures).
If we had gone a bit further south we would have seen the Nasca lines, which are gigantic lines scratched into the ground depicting animal figures (I´m sure there is info on the internet), but I was satisfied with looking at pictures and seeing a replica at a the regional museum in Ica. Ica is supposedly inhospitable to the tourist as my guidebook suggested and many locals told us time and again to be careful, which we are, but no more than usual. Well, we had no problems, and were able to visit a vineyard and get a tour of how they make their wine and their brandy like tequila called Pisco (just like the town), which is very strong and is especially good with Lime juice, tasting much like a Margarita. We bought a bottle, and broke it in on our return to Lima, but are saving the rest to warm the bellies in the altitudes near Machu Pichu.
Also, we purchased little truffle-like candies called Tejas (just like Texas, but pronounced "teh-has") one bag for us, one bag for our hosts. Good stuff. Which reminds me of another candy we bought weeks ago in Trujillo, strangely named King Kong, (perhaps some bastardization of some indigenous word, perhaps not), a breaded candy that comes in a big box. The big box we bought was intended to be a gift, but it didn´t make it to Lima. also good stuff! What is not good stuff is Coca Cola´s only competitor, a Peruvian Soda called Inca Kola. In fact, it is the only national product in the world that outsells Coca Cola, within Peru. That is it outsells Coca-Cola cola, I´m sure with all the other Coca Cola products that Inca Kola doesn´t have a chance. But it´s nuclear yellow color and bubblelicious bubble gum taste just turn my stomach, but sales are high here. Good for them. (Did you know that 20%+ of liquid consumed by humans, in the WORLD, is a Coca Cola product. Yup, 20%, including their bottled water, sprite, fanta, etc. I learned that back home. Coca Cola is EVERYWHERE, but with an unrelenting presence. Just when you think you´re in the middle of nowhere, a donkey passes you carrying ... Coca Cola!).
So, our plan is to leave, again, Monday, and push it through to Bolivia by the end of January, and be in Sao Paulo sometime around the 15th of February (that will be pushing it, but the route we´ve mapped will accommodate: La Paz to Potosí to Villazón to Salta (northern Argentina) to Asunción (paraguay) to Iguazu Falls (border of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay) and up to Sao Paulo; roughly 15 to 17 days. Roughly a rough trip, but we´re travelers, and we´ve come a long way, it can´t be anything we haven´t seen before, though the altitudes in Bolivia might be an issue, try 10,000+ feet is Lake Titicaca, and that won´t be our apogee)
I don´t know what else is going on. I´m feeling well, eating well. Perhaps I will see Lord of the Rings tonight. On the bus back we watched Spider Man and Captain Hart´s War (or something like that) and that was the cheap bus!!!
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As for the guitar, I play it all the time, but am anticipating tiring of carrying it around, after Brazil. True, I could get rid of it, but it´s been good. I´ll probably leave it somewhere. And my books? what will I do with them? Mail them? so heavy. And how are my guitars at home? I miss them too. Now that I think about it, I hated this guitar because it was so bad compared to my others.
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