Sweet, Sour and Sandy

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DAY 62: Ica, capital city of the department of the same name, is known for two things:  its massive and dramatic surrounding sand dunes (picture below), and its pisco brandy and wine-producing vineyards.  The easiest way to see them both is with a city tour.  At just ten dollars, the tour wasn’t a bad deal considering the amount of free booze samples you get.  And what’s not to like about free booze?

My tour guide Fernando picked me up in an unmarked sedan.  He was a nice fortysomething man who didn’t speak any English—the majority of tourists were Peruvian anyway.  We picked up the three other tourists at their hotels:  Luis, a Peruvian living and working in Mexico City, and Elena and Mauricio, a young couple from Cuzco.  Fernando took us around the highlights of the city, first to the church of Señor de Luren with its classical architecture and moreno-toned Christ.  Despite the fact that Luis was native to Peru, he must have been excited to be back because he was taking pictures left and right, many of which I took for him so he could be in it.

Fernando took us to two nearby vineyards, El Catedor and the Italian-founded Vista Alegre.  Both had displays of old-fashioned grape presses which were replaced by modern equipment.  Juices of grapes were fermented in ceramic pots or oak barrels to produce a number of fine red and white wines, many of which were very sweet, like desert wines.  In addition to the various wines, they also produced cognacs, vermouth and the famous regional white grape brandy, pisco.  Pisco is often mixed with sour mix to make the ever-popular “pisco sour” cocktail.

Needless to say, the wine and pisco tastings were the best—and blurriest—parts of the two tours.

THE LAST STOP OF THE CITY TOUR was Huaca China, a natural oasis-turned-resort in the middle of the surrounding desert.  Huaca China used to be the vacation destination for heads of state and men of power, but over the years it felt into despair—only to be overridden by backpackers and sandboard bums.  I was surprised to see the number of gringos there because Huaca China—nor sandboarding for that matter—was mentioned in my Lonely Planet “Shoestring” guide.

Luis and I wandered around the lake, watching the paddleboats and swimmers inside.  Massive sand dunes the size of mountains surrounded us and with the presence of desert palms, I felt I might have been in the Sahara.

Fernando’s city tour ended there, but rather than go back with the rest, I hung around for a bit of sandboarding.

I HAVE BEEN AN AVID SNOWBOARDER for the past five years, and having been away from snow in the summer of the southern hemisphere, this was where I’d get my fix.  While most of the sandboard bums just rented a board for five bucks and hiked up the dunes for an hour only to come down in a minute, I paid the twenty bucks for a sand buggy to pick me up and bring me to the top after every run.

People who drive sand buggies aren’t called “drivers” in Huaca China.  They are called “pilots.” I didn’t understand this until my pilot Mitchell, a Chilean living in Peru, got behind the wheel.  With just miles upon miles of sand with nothing to crash into, Mitchell took the buggy about 60 miles per hour up and down the massive dunes.  Like a rally sport driver, he swerved around deep ditches and floored it down jaw-dropping hills that must have been 75°, if not more.  To describe the experience as a “roller coaster” would be both cliché and an understatement.  A snappy metaphor doesn’t come to mind, but I suppose it was like being in a NASA training simulator—not that I’ve ever been—where they spin you and contort your body really fast just to see what the limits of human endurance are.  There should have been a warning sign that read “Do not go on this ride if you have heart conditions, are pregnant or have a will to live.” I was strapped in with a shoulder belt, which was absolutely necessary since I might have flown up and out of the car when it caught a little air.

And if driving ridiculously fast up and down a sea of sand wasn’t enough of a heartstopper, Mitchell would race up a dune and stop short right at the edge of a peak.

“[You sandboard?]” I asked him.

“[No, that’s for crazy people.]”

Riight.

ACCOMPANYING ME ON THE SLOPES was Andres, a Colombian on vacation from his job in San Antonio, Texas.  He wasn’t as experienced in boarding as I was, so we did a couple of practice runs on a “bunny slope”—which was about as gentle the bunny boiling in Fatal Attraction. Mitchell picked us up and brought up to the top each time, and over time, Andres got the hang of it.

Sandboarding is similar to snowboarding in that you have to have a certain amount of lunacy to do it.  Sandboards are similar in design to snowboards, except the bindings are made of velcro straps that hug your boots.  Sand, although more forgiving on impact, doesn’t pack or move like snow does, making it difficult to carve left and right—doing so would only make you lose momentum and stop.  With this said, sandboarding is a major balancing act where you must balance your body with your will to live—or rather, the will not to ingest sand.

Mitchell (center) drove us through his big play sandbox to bigger and bigger dunes to surf down, each time meeting us at the bottom for a convenient lift back up.  I shot down like a rocket on each mound, happy that being away from home didn’t prevent me from going riding.  Andres wiped out a couple of times, and had to stop once to empty all the sand that had filled his pockets.

Our pilot drove us to a peak so we could watch the sunset.  The sun glowed a creamy orange and transformed the sky into other colors of the rainbow sherbet spectrum.  As we blazed a dusty trail back into town, I felt the whole experience ranked in one of the top things I’ve done in South American thus far.

BACK IN HUACA CHINA, Andres and I bought Mitchell a beer at the nearby outdoor bar, adjacent to a popular hostel.  There I met two Brits, Matt and Ellen, who had just arrived in Ica that day and had heard nothing but raves about the sand buggy/boarding experience.  I added to that hype.

Until I got a taxi back into the city, I drank and chatted with the Brits and the local bartender Lalo, who made us various drinks with pisco in them—one of which was called the “Huaca fucking China.” Although it wasn’t free like the taste samples that morning, it was the perfect drink after a great fucking day.


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This blog entry about the events of Saturday, December 20, 2003 was originally posted on December 21, 2003 on the blog, "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World (Or Until Money Runs Out, Whichever Comes First)," hosted by BootsnAll.com. It is one of over 500 entries that chronicled a trip around the world from October 2003 to March 2005, encompassing travel through thirty-seven countries in North America, South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. It was this blog that "started it all," where Erik evolved and honed his style of travel blogging. (It starts to come into focus around the time he arrives in Africa.)

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