We left at 7 on Saturday morning and took spent about 4 hours in the bus until we got to the lagoon "La Huacachina." They piled us into dune buggies and we were off. The dune buggies were so much fun. It was like riding a rollercoaster. The sand dunes were much higher than I had imagined and we were going pretty fast, up, down and around them. We stopped at the top of a dune, and got out the sandboards. We laid down on our stomaches, put our feet up in the air, and held on. The boards went down pretty fast and the hills were really high, so it was like ultimate sledding. On the third one I tried going down on my butt, which ended in my rolling over a few times.
The desert was gorgeous, and it was a perfect day with clear blue skies.
After we were done sandboarding, they took us back to the lagoon in the dunebuggies, and we stopped to eat the restaurant across the street.
I went on the bus to grab my purse to take in the restaurant. I was in a pretty great mood after all that, and wasn't really being as cautious as I should, so I hung my purse over my chair. There were about 40 of us ISA students at the table, and there was a girl sitting beside me on the side my purse was on, and people looking at me from across the table. Plus, the restaurant wasn't too busy, there were just a couple other families of tourists in there, and our ISA guides were sitting at a table where they could see me, so I didn't feel like there was too much risk of my stuff getting stolen.
Unfortunately I was very wrong.
Towards the end of dinner, the waitress came up to me and said "Ma'am, your purse is on the floor." I picked it up and put it on my lap. The outer pouch was open, but I didn't think anything of it, because all I keep in there is chapstick, and I figured I had just left the button undone.
Then, when we got in the bus and were ready to drive away, I went to take my camera out of my purse to take a picture. It wasn't there, so I looked in my backpack. It wasn't there either, and I thought, "Did someone steal it?" Then I thought I was just being paranoid, but I looked in my purse and realized all my money was gone. I had had about 250 soles (~$100). I went up to Andy and Jose Luis, the ISA guys, and told them all my stuff was gone. Andy went with me back into the restaurant and we told the owner. At first they didn't believe me, because it obviously doesn't seem likely that someone would have been able to get in my zipped up purse, then get to the zipped up inner pouch where all my money was, without anyone aware of what was going on. They thought I had just "misplaced" S./ 250 or that I had let my stuff fall out of my purse, yet somehow, my kleenexes and pen and stuff magically stayed in. Finally I convinced them that my purse did not magically unzip itself (twice), cough up all my valuables, and then zip itself back up. Someone definitely stole it.
The restaurant owner said he didn't know how this could have possibly happened because he had had a perfect view of where I was sitting and would have seen it, and "this sort of thing just doesn't happen in his restaurant." Well, sir, it did. And I'm pretty sure one of his employees did it, because they could have easily grabbed it without us noticing while they were serving our food, then threw it back on the floor by my feet when they came back.
But there was nothing we could do, and the owner said he would call if he heard or found anything.
So I got back on the bus, thanking god that at least they didn't jack my passport (we have to bring our original passports on every trip to check into the hotel). In the end, a camera and $100 bucks isn't that bad. It could have been a lot worse. I'll just take pics of the trip with my ipod like I did in Machu Picchu.
Oh wait.
My ipod was also in my purse. Along with my cell phone.
It just got a lot worse.
Luckily, I was on an amazing vacation, so after my initial breakdown, it was easy enough to put it out of my mind for the rest of the weekend.
We checked into an amazing hotel called the Hotel Las Dunas. They changed up the rooms this time, so I roomed with Raquel instead of Leah. The hotel had everything you could imagine. A giant chess set, horses, chickens, a llama, a castle, a pool with a waterslide, a rock climbing wall and a sand dune with sandboards. I decided that I could use a drink, so Dawn, Raquel, and I walked to the bodega to get some cartons of sangria (because we're classy) and a box of chocolate. With this in hand, we climbed to the top of the dune to watch the sunset. It was gorgeous. You could see the whole city of Ica.
After the sun started going down, we got a little chilly so we hopped down the dune, probably one of my favorite things to do, and went to our hotel room, where we warmed up and watched some Project Runway until it was time to meet up for dinner.
They took us to a mall for dinner, so we got some Pizza Hut. Then we headed back to the hotel, and after watching some more reality TV, we decided we were tired, and we went to bed.
This morning, we went to breakfast at the hotel, out by the pool. They had a delicious breakfast spread, so we filled up, stealthily stole some bread, then boarded the bus. We drove about an hour and a half to Paracas. From there we got on a boat, and it took us to the Ballestas Islands.
On the way, we got to see the "candelabro" geoglyph on the side of one of the hills.
Then we went to the Ballestas Islands. They're small islands filled with wildlife. Tourists aren't allowed to go on the islands, but we rode the boat around them.
They are filled with birds, and as soon as we started getting close, the smell became overwhelming. Anyone who's every had a parakeet knows that one bird smells bad, so imagine and island full of seagulls, pelicans, boobies, and all of their shit. It was not pleasant, but it was definitely worth it. Besides the birds, you could also see sea lions and penguins. The penguins were tiny and adorable and the sea lions were even adorable-er. They were all laying on the rocks, basking in the sun, and we even saw a baby seal nursing. It was pretty cool to see sea lions and penguins in their natural habitat instead of in a zoo. The sea lions are pretty hilarious, too, itching their neck with their fins like a dog, scooting up the rocks, and barking at each other.
The islands themselves were gorgeous, too. They were rocky with lots of arcs and cliffs.
One thing that worried me about the boat ride was the amount of birds flying above us and my lack of head protection. Luckily, I was not one of the unfortunate two to get pooped on.
Luckily for Peru, that poop is valuable stuff. It's called guano, and it's excellent fertilizer. During the 19th century, they exported it to England and France, and after the war with Chile, it helped Peru pay off it's national debt. Unfortunately, they made the Chinese immigrants do all the dirty work of packing and working with the Guano, paying them next to nothing, because it was a job that no one else was willing to do.
Just as I thought I wouldn't be able to handle the smell anymore, we headed back to shore.
We stopped for lunch at a little restaurant on the beach, and they served us family style, bringing out pitchers of chicha morada, and platters of different kinds of food, so we got to try a little of it all. It included the dish we had had at the first restaurant, which was potatoes and meat in a red sauce that tasted kind of chili-like, with spaghetti. They also brought out chicharrones (battered and fried fish), fried yucca (my fave), ceviche, seafood rice, beans, salad, and seco (beef in a cilantro sauce).
After that we had time to shop around in the markets. I had like 10 people offering to lend me money, but luckily there wasn't much I wanted to buy.
At 2:30 we got back into the bus to head home. I slept most of the way back, and we got home around 6:30. I had thought I had left my credit card and debit card at home, after a mental debate about whether or not I would need them, but when I looked in my room I couldn't find them anywhere so they must have been in my purse.
This just keeps getting better and better.
So I called Wells Fargo and Capital One on skype to cancel my cards, and luckily I have backups, so they don't need to worry about sending me new ones in Peru.
I guess I learned my lesson. I'll definitely keep an eye on my stuff at all times no matter where I'm at.
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