Pisco Day = Trip to Ica

We [Tripper, Lauren, Nila and I] had the good luck of accidentally planning a trip to Ica during the weekend celebrating Pisco Day. We awoke before dawn and took a five hour bus ride to Ica. On arrival the main plaza quickly filled up with adults and children of all ages ready to parade around the square. Different bodegas made up the parade groups--the ones that were a hit were the crowd offered free pisco shots to bystanders as they walked by. Pisco, more than being a town south of Lima that was devestated by an earthquake in 2007, is an alcoholic grape brandy used to make Peru's National drink--the Pisco Sour (oh so yummy, if you visit we'll go pisco sour bar hopping and you'll also hear me rave about the Maracuya sour!).  Peruvians will forever argue that Pisco is their alcohol, not something invented by the Chileans as the Chileans will say.

After watching the parade for a bit, we made our way to Huacachina, a town about 15 min away from Ica known as a sand dune oasis and offering an adrenaline filled ride of dunebuggying and sandboarding. But before our adventure filled afternoon we checked out a few of the bodegas to go pisco and wine tasting. It was awesome, but let me tell you--pisco is dangerously strong. I turned at least half of it away so I'd be ok for sandboarding. It was easy to turn down the wine, as I am far from admiring it as one of Peru's specialties [when choosing wine here Chile or Argentina is the way to go]. 

On return to our hotel we headed to the sand dunes in a monster dune buggy.  If you like amusement parks you'd love dune buggying. We piled into the buggy and drove like crazy through the mountains of sand. It looked like a never ending dessert--if I'd been dropped off alone, it'd be impossible to find my way back. The driver sped up at all the right times and stopped in between for us to sandboard down the slopes. Most of us chose to go belly down, as we quickly learned that it was nothing like snowboarding. I ended up being pretty good at it--going the farthest and fastest every time in our group. Our adventure had a perfect ending as we watched the sun set over the dunes as we headed back into town.

The next day we went an hour northwest to Paracas, where we started our morning with a boat ride out to the Islas Ballestas (another Poor Man's Galapagos...one of these days I have to see the real one). The ride out was gorgeous and well worth it to check out the variety of bird species [zarcillos, boobies, cormorants, seagulls], crazy sea lions living out their passion-filled life of mating, fighting, and eating (poor exiled male sea lions who lost their battle and were thrown off the main island and sent to isolation), and last, but best of all--the penguins!!

We headed back to land and after a quick lunch, took a taxi for a private tour of the Paracas Reserve, which was absolutely breathtaking. We stopped at various lookout points along the way. The 2007 earthquake not only devastated Pisco, but also resulted in the death of wildlife and destruction of some of the lookout points on the reserve.  My favorite spot was the Red Sand Beach because I'd never seen something as awesome before.  I could've spent days camping out there, moving from beach to beach and hanging out. It was a crazy 1.5 days, but after the variety we experienced I can see why Ica is a "must see" on the Gringo trail.