Sand Dunes, Penguins, Skeletons=/ and We Can Breath Again!

Again, as Mike promised, we´ve had many more adventures!!! On our way to Lima we made two wonderful stops. The first was in Huacachina, a little oasis in the middle of the second biggest desert in the world and home to the biggest dunes!!! Of course, on our first night there, we had no choice but to climb the tallest dune and get as high as we could and then come back down by rolling, jumping, and ¨swimming¨in the sand! We got our fix and got a good night sleep before big adventures the next day. We started day two by having a REAL breakfast (not just bread and butter, which we were usually given)!! Soon after we were lent sandboards, so that we could get some practice in before heading out on the dune buggy in the afternoon. We headed out for the equivalent o f a bunny hill and met some charming elementary school kids on a school field-trip. They were interested in everything from our names to whether Mike´s dad was the president of the U.S. Basically, they were fascinated with our ¨gringo-ness.¨ I think their favorite part was being able to show off their English speaking skills to their new friends, and being able to ¨teach us¨how to sandboard! Our favorite was how stoked they were! After some good laughs with these awesome kids we headed back up to the top of the sand mountain and had some fun on the boards! We sand boarded (which is pretty similar to snowboarding) all the way down and though we craved a little more speed thought we´d be having a lot more fun once we got better on our feet! In the early afternoon we finally went out on our dune buggy ride! Our driver was fortunately the right dose of crazy and took us on a great ride through the ups and downs of the giant dunes!Towards the end of our ride we stopped to do some sand boarding mod-desert! After we all got the hang of going down the dunes foot first our driver decided it was time for a new adventure. He used Mike to demonstrate how to lay on the board to go head first o n your belly. Just when Mike thought he´d be able to get back up however , our driver gave him a gentle push and Mike flew down the enormous mountain head first on his board and gave us all a big ¨YEAH!¨when he got to the bottom! after that we spent the next hour or so climbing and going down the dunes head first, and the dunes only got bigger every time! It was a real a adrenaline rush and more fun than going down on our feet could have ever been! We later learned that this sort of adventure only exists in Huacachina and in the Sahara!

By day three we had done all there was to do in this lovely oasis and we headed o ff towards Las Is las Ballestas and Paracas National Reserve. The islands are nicknamed the poor Galapagos by the locals because they are a smaller version of the animal populated beautiful islands of Ecuador. Here we got to see hundreds of seagulls and pelicans fishing in the OCEAN! As an extra special little gift we got to see perky little penguins waddling around the island! We also saw quite a few sea lions that reminded us of home and lots and lots of bird poop that covered the islands! We actually learned that every few (4-ish) years about 20 men spend 4 months ¨harvesting¨the bird poop (which they call guano) to use as fertilizer for their crops. After about an hour of circling the beautiful rock islands surrounded by turquoise waters we headed back to the shore where we had earlier head a man playing Hotel California on the guitar and pan flute(!) and found a place to drop off our things and head out for the next adventure!

Our guidebook let us down for the first time! It told us we could walk all the way into the Paracas National Reserve from the little town we were staying in. We headed out at around 12 towards a spot that seemed nice for a picnic by the ocean shore. After about 3 hours o f walking we had walked on the shore, passed by The Hilton´s private beach (and gotten stared at for being poor?), collected about every complete shell I could find, payed our fee and the check point and refused taxi rides on what appeared to be the longest road even in the middle of the desert. If we wouldn´t have known better we wouldn't have known that one day that road would lead us back to the ocean. After a ride in the back of the truck of a nice family through the rest of the National Reserve we learned about how the earthquake that happened last time Mike was here had changed the geography of the area and then followed a trail to our lunch spot (another hour walk in the dunes). The view was beautiful! A lot like the cliffs of Big Sur, but without HWY 1 and with endless sand dunes instead of endless forest. Eventually we headed back to the road to learn that taxis charged an arm and two legs to get us back to town on the 10 kilometer desert road. We walked for about an hour before another lovely family gave us a ride in the back of their truck and got us back into town before dark! We were extremely thankful to them for that!After some chicken and fries for a dollar fifty we slept like babies! The next day we took off for Lima after breakfast, and has the smoothest day of travel we´ve had in South America; despite the fact that we had to take 3 taxis and a bus.

Lima..... I´m so sleepy but the highlights of Lima has been the great cheap food and pastries (mostly at the wonderful market on the Plaza de Armas and the best Chinese food ever!), we got our lost pictures back(!!!) and we visited the creepiest church EVER!!! The the church´s basement was filled with skeletons. The Peruvians found the thousands of skeletons years ago and decided it´d be fun to sort the bones by type of bone. They then took out all of the destroyed bones and arranged the remaining bones by type in huge brick planter looking things so that the tourists could ¨enjoy¨them! AHHH! We´ve decided that either non-cooperating Incas or Inca slaves of the Spanish were the ones buried under the church =(

Chapter 2 starts tomorrow! We´re off to the beautiful beaches of Latin America and as much fun as we´ve been having, we´re SOOOOOO excited for this next part!

We love you and miss you all!