So after hanging out in Chile for a little while and draining my money on the rediculously overpriced things I needed to leave. I headed back for Peru to visit some of the cool cities that I never got a chance to before. After heading to a little town on the boarder of Chile and Peru but still in Chile, I boarded a train to head across the border into Peru. I was chatting with some Chilean women on the train and she told me that in the town where I was headed just across the border there was a bunch of protesting and a civil war going on, so I was a little sketched about arriving. After I did arrive at the bus station I booked an overnight bus to the city of Arequipa in Peru. The only problem was it was about 7 in the morning and my bus wasn´t until 8pm. After leaving my bags with the bus company, and having a disgusting shower in the bathroom at the bus station I headed into town. I didn´t see much of anything going on except a bunch of old people hanging out in the town square feeding some pigeons. After being completely bored out of my mind i had a nap in a park and read some of my book and sat around doing a whole lot of nothing. After finally getting on my bus I made it to Arequipa the next morning.
I thought it would be a good idea to walk to my hostel instead of taking a cab and after about 45 minutes of walking i gave up on that idea and took a cab for a measly 3 soles which is about $1. I heard that my friend Drew from LA who I met in Ecuador a few months earlier was in town also and after trying to arrange a meet up, but failing a few times I basically just hung out around the city and explored some cool markets and made some wicked ham sandwiches in my hostel. The next day I finally met up with Drew at this really cool hostel he was at along with some other really cool dudes from England, Ireland, and the states. I was planning on hanging out in Arequipa for a little while and then heading to this town called Huacachina just outside of Ica where you can sandboard and stuff, but Drew told me that he was heading for Ica the next day and I decided it would be way more fun to just travel with him and go sandboarding and stuff rather than going by myself. After catching up for a bit and exchanging hilarious stories of things that have happened to us since Ecuador we all headed to the best go-karts I have ever been to in my life. There was this really cool indoor go-kart track just around the corner with these super fast go-karts that had completely bald tires on a super slippery floor, so you can have some super wicked drifting around corners and get the karts completely sideways and have the wickedest drifts ever. It was like fast and the furious peruvian drift. Oh and the other thing about these go-karts were that there were no rules, you could basically crash as hard as you want into anyone or ANYTHING haha, and the guys running it would just smile and fix your kart if it was backwards or anything. So basically if someone took a drift too hard around a corner and got sideways and stuck,theperson behind him could t-bone that sucker at full speed haha, and we didn´t even wear helmets. The best part is they were only about 75 cents a go. So after spending hours having the best go-kart experience of my life we headed back to the hostel and play a game of giant jenga with huuuge blocks as the pieces. Wearing a hard-hat is neccesary sometimes. After completely owning everybody we all headed to the club which was actually pretty fun. I´m not a huge clubber but Ispent the entire night on the dance floor not getting back home till about 4am. The next day Drew and I headed to this museum of an ice mummy that was super cool, (literally). Basically it is this super preserved child that was sacrificed on the top of one of the highest summits in the area. After watching a video documentary about her you walk around, see all the cool items, and then you get to see her which is really creepy. We didn´t leave the museum without playing a super childish game called the penis game which involves one person saying the word penis quietly, and increasing the volume with each turn. After winning the game we headed back to the hostel to cook up an insanely awesome barbeque before heading on our bus to Ica. Oh yeah did I mention that I saw a guy taking a dump in the middle of the road in broad daylight.
After a grueling 12 hour overnight bus to Ica, and having the bus driver forget to let us off about 30km out of the way. We finally made it to Ica and headed to the village of Huacachina. Huacachina is this tiny little town surrounded by an oasis, surrounded by giant sand dunes in the middle of the desert. we hung out around the pool in our hostel most of the day and got lunch with one of the barkeapers in the town. We had the Peruvian national dish which is called ceviche, Which is basically raw fish, cut up and served with onions, lettuce, lime sauce and hot sauce, and is DELICIOUS. We headed back to Huacachina to start a dune buggy/sandboarding trip in the nearby sand dunes. When we started our driver was pretty wild pulling some crazy maneuvers over these sand dunes and stopping in some sweet spots to sandboard. Being the only one with snowboard experience I headed down on my feet a few times carving through the soft sand down to the bottom before hopping back on our buggy for the next wicked spot. After seeing my friends going down head first and getting some INSANE speed I decided to try it and wow, I have never gone that fast in my life without some sort of machine. Our driver took us to this crazy spot over looking these sanddunes as far as the eye can see to watch the sunset. When we were heading back our driver started pulling out the crazy that he was hiding before. Getting some sweet air over these dunes and pulling some rad fish tails in the sand before returning back. Some of the most fun ive had in a while.
After leaving Ica Drew and myself headed for this national park called Paracas and wanted to explore. After checking into the nicest hostel I´ve been to on my trip, we had the idea to explore it on our own. But luckily our taxi drive offered to act as a guide instead and drove us around the entire day in the park showing us cool spots to swim and stuff. After realizing this park is in the middle of the desert and we would have totally gotten annihilated on our own we were thankful this taxi driver was super cool. He even took us fishing on this cliff. All we had was a fishing line and a hook with some bait and after 20 something minutes of catching nothing we started reelin in some mad fish. BAM, fish after fish every like 30 seconds, it was insane. After exploring some more, seeing beuatiful scenery like red sand beaches and stuff we headed back to our super beachfront hostel which was only about $5 a night and partied with some cool people from France and Spain.
Drew and I left Paracas to head back to the capital city of Lima because we both have flights pretty soon to return home. After checking into our hostel we were randomly greeted by some friends we met in Arequipa like I mentioned before. We all headed to the club that night which was super lame. First of all we were supposed to get into for free but ended up having to pay about $7 to get in which is super expensive for Peruvian standards. The music was cool at the beginning and there were guns that shot out conffetti, but after a few hours all it was, was shitty salsa music. This club was soooo packed you couldnt even move and we didn´t end up getting back till about 5 am in the morning. Drew left to head back to LA, and the rest of my time I have here is going to be spent hangin out doing a whole lot of nothing because I am broker than a joker except making the best fruit salads ever. you can get about 4 mangos, 5 bananas, 3 apples, a box of strawberrys for about $1 here.
I am actually kind of excited to be heading home to see everyone again after soo long. Its definetly going to be super weird leaving this continent after getting so comfortable with it. I am definetly going to miss the cheapness of it the most. I love the fact that you can get a whole meal with some good hardy food, like a giant soup for a starter, followed by a huge plate of rice, veggies, and some chicken, and finished off with some desert, all for $1. I am bummed that I am going to have to pay tons of money for something totally not filling, when I get back home. I am stoked to get back for winter cuz I have definetly had my fix of sunshine here after spending the last 3 weeks around desert cities. I stocked up on alapaca wear for the cold winters of Vancouver. Also it is going to be Christmas soon and I am super stoked for that because I have finished ALL my christmas shopping down here, so I have nothing to worry about. I am stoked to give all my presents to people, because they will like all the cool things I got them from south america, as opposed to boring normal things from Canada. Well that is all that is new in my life, maybe something crazy and exciting will happen to me that I can write about before I head home. guess I will see everyone soon.
Thanks!
I love you all!
- Justen Ortiz
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