We arrived in Pisco and tried to get into our first hostel of choice, but they had nothing. Without a definite itinerary (I know that may be hard to comprehend, but it just doesnīt always work here, as you change plans at the last minute, stay longer in a place or move on at a whim, so booking ahead is sometimes a pain unless it is busy (this would prove to not work to our advantage in Arequipa in a few days). So we hit the next hostel on the street. They had space for a cheap 30 soles/night (market rate now is 3.2 soles to the dollar but we figure everything on 3 for easy calculations).
There is one picture on line with Rachel and the green painted room. Ugly, but they had tv, hot water and extra blankets for the cold night. thank goodness the bare lightbulbs hid the mold thruout the bathroom, but hey it was private, 2 steps to the plaza and they would let us leave our packs in a locked room for the next day when we went on our day trip. The beds were fully compressed, the dog barked all night, some people came in loudly at 4am, but it served itīs purpose for our trip to see the sea lions, penguins, 1000īs of birds, dolphins and a desert tour the next day.
Pisco intially was nothing to boast about, but the small Plaza de Armas (all the towns have one as it is the centre of town and it is called the same thing) was cosy and once we got over our inital worry of being in S.A. and the all the necessary cautions, we settled in just fine for our one night there. We walked around, set up our park tour, bought a few necessary daily supplies (a few rules of S.A. - always have bottled water on hand, keep multiple layers of clothes with you because when the sun goes down the temperature drops to freezing or below depending on what altiltude you are at and always, always, have toilet paper in your day pack...they do not supply it except on rare occasions) and then found a place to have a Pisco sour and some food. Pisco sours turned out to not taste that great actually. INgredients exactly unknown, but white wine, egg, sugar, and the consistency and near taste of a margarita.
We were treated to some local Peruvian music which was good and a birdīs eye view from the balcony of our restaurant b4 retiring for the night as we had to get up early for our tour. The tour was pretty cool for wildlife and we had a great first day out. Upon our return to Pisco, we hit the bus terminal as the next bus was pulling out for our next destination of Ica. Only about 1 1/2 hrs away, we actually were headed to a small desert oasis called Huacachina where we wanted to go dune buggy riding and sand boarding the next day. literally, this little village had a small lake, some palm trees and places to stay for people just in to do the above.
So up early again and we raced thru the desert and got completely covered in sand in every crack from trying to sand board down the huge dunes. But it was fun. And the first sun in over 4 days. We showered back at our hostel and again caught the next bus as it was leaving to Nazca to hopefully fly over the famous Nazca lines.
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