Fin de Semana Larga!

Hola,

I bleed for science

Well, since Taylor left I have settled into my new place (although the commute is KILLER - at least 1 to 1.5 hours each way) and attempted to begin a regular lab schedule. The only problem is my supplies still haven't arrived and the project has been slow to get rolling. I did all my test runs this week on myself! That's right...someone in the lab who has drawn blood "once or twice before" stuck me, and I was "Patient 0." It was actually sort of fun to test my protocol on myself, and I think we worked out all the kinks and are ready for real patient sample next week!

Pisco and wine!

In the meantime, we had a long weekend for yet another Peruvian holiday. Of course I wanted to take advantage, and I planned a trip for myself and about 13 other Gringos that just arrived in Lima on various scholarships. We ended up going to Ica (I had already been there - wine tasting and sand dunes!) and to a small town called Lunahuana to go white water rafting.

We left at 6:30am on Saturday morning, but for some reason decided that since it was so early, the best idea would be to stay out all night the night before the bus, and go straight to the bus from the clubs....clearly this logic might leave something to be desired (like sleep!) but I embraced the plan and around midnight we headed out to a bar in Barranco.

Tacama vineyard

We stayed until after 4am, and the guys got odd looking hamburgers from a cart in the street on the way home. I had a bite, and they tasted delicious...but I still can't bring myself to eat red meat from a stand at 4am. We grabbed our backpacks, got to the bus station, and all promptly passed out for the 4 hour drive to Ica.

Some of The Gringo Crew

When we arrived, it turns out one of the guys packs didn't make it onto the bus, so we waited around for a Peruvian "15 minutes"....15 minutes coming from a Peruvian means anything from 20 minutes to about 2 hours. Then its "un ratito," which means "just a sec" or "maybe some time tomorrow if you're lucky." So we waited for about an hour and his bag did miraculously arrive. We dumped our stuff at our hotel and headed out for a wine tour.

The boys dancing on stage

Since I had already been to Ica (during the Peruvian Independence Week), we negotiated a great tour of 3 wineries and transportation for all 10 of us for only 20 Peruvian Soles per person (about $7 for a whole afternoon of wine touring!). We had lunch at the first bodega, and then hit two more. It was a relaxing and fun afternoon, and by around 6pm we were all pretty tired. We agreed to a long nap back at the hotel and all crashed for a couple of hours before dinner.

Pisco...

After the nap and a late dinner in Ica, we headed out to clubs near the oasis and the dunes...Well, I guess I should say "THE club," because there is only one decent bar in the whole tiny place. We danced and had a few drinks, and around 3:00am a few in the group headed home. Since I didn't climb the dunes last time I was here, I thought it would be a great idea to hike up the dune in the dark and watch the sun rise from the peak. 3 other gringos (Dan, Josh and Mary) were actually foolish enough to come with me ;)

Climbing the dune

Knowing we might get thirsty on our long hike up the dune, we purchased a bottle of pisco at the bar and began our little quest. We sadly underestimated the grade of the dune and spent the next HOUR on our hands and knees crawling up the dune! Armed with our bottle of fortification, we crawled on, and made it to the top...but we also underestimated the number of hours it would be before sunrise and we arrived about 2 hours too soon. Dan entertained us with borderline terrible jokes, and we sat at the peak as the sky gradually lightened.

We watched the sun rise over the misty valley and the oasis come into view. It was a beautiful morning, but we were all tired and quite sandy, so we began or trek down the dune. We discovered that if your ran down the dune while taking huge strides, you could bound down like a moon walker! However, we also quickly discovered that one false step meant that you would end up tumbling head-over-heels in the seemingly soft sand.

I volunteered to gingerly walk down the sand mountain after carefully storing everyone's camera in my ziploc bag and watched my friends careen down the steep slope (some more gracefully than others). We all made it down the hill with our limbs intact, and grabbed a cab back to Ica. Since it was only about 7am, we had a difficult time finding an open establishment for breakfast. But our taxi driver was sympathetic enough and drove us around in circles until we found a restaurant. We had tamales and juice and walked back to our hotel and went to sleep at about 9am.

We were rudely awakened by our alarms at 11 am, got dressed, and checked out of the hotel. The other 6 gringos had gone sandboarding, so we wandered the super small town of Ica in search of a massage. We found none, save for the world's creepiest Turkish bath house, which would "only massage women today. Men tomorrow." We never found a legitimate massage place, so we had some lunch, grabbed some ice cream, and sat in the plaza like all the other Peruvians. The mean security guard blew his whistle at us when we tried to sit in the grass (apparently that's not allowed in a park?) so we crashed on a bench and waited for our friends.

Who doesn't like Crack?

They eventually finished, but 4 of them decided they wanted to go to Paracas (to see the penguins), but I had my heart set on river rafting, so 6 of us hopped a bus to a town called Canete. It was an easy ride, and we arrived, grabbed a cab, and all 6 of us jammed in with our bags for the 40 minute drive to the town called Lunahuana. I had picked the town because it was supposed to be surrounded by vineyards with a river running through it for white water rafting...and it was only 2.5 hours from Lima! We arrived in the dark and couldn't see the river, and also had some trouble finding the hostel.

Our prison cell

After calling and stopping every person on the street, we found the place - but we were told we had "no reservations." Just so you know what I went through to secure reservations, I'll tell you that I called over 27 hotels in this small town, and FINALLY found this place which claimed they had space for 10 people!! But when we arrived he gave us the run around about having to "call and confirm the day before" and blah, blah, blah....and that they had no rooms for us. Knowing that every other hotel was dull (because I had called them all!!) I demanded that he figure it out. He thought for a while, wandered around in circles, and then brought me over to what I can only imagine was a storage closet. In the closet there were mattresses piled - he said he would try to make up 2 rooms for us in this "unfinished area," (read: construction site and storage closet). I knew it was better than the alternative of sleeping in the street, so I agreed. He tried to charge us triple the original price (for us to sleep in closets!!) but I talked him back down to the original price of 15 soles per person (about $5.50) and we left to get dinner and let him prepare the rooms.

Our prison cell bathroom

We had a tasty pizza dinner and laughed about the hostel. Luckily everyone thought it was hilarious, and we were all glad that we were only 6 people, not the original and impossible 10 people, because it never would have worked! We ate and had a beer, and even though we were all exhausted from our extreme lack of sleep, we decided to hop a cab into town to see the plaza. We got to the plaza, tried in vain to find an ATM, and attempted to get a drink. We ordered, waited for about 30 minutes, and then gave up when the waitress told us "one minute" for the 5th time.

We headed back to our dungeons/prison cells hoping to find 6 beds. We found 5 "bed like" items, shockingly had hot running water, and decided to ignore how odd the whole situation was and try to get sleep. My bed was rock solid, but I got a few hours....

The Rafting Crew

We woke up on Monday and were finally able to see our surroundings! We were in a valley between rocky hills, and it honestly looked a lot like Southern California. Barren and brown, but here, there was a river running through the valley! We checked out of the hostel as fast as possible, and started aimlessly wandering down the one road in town hoping to find breakfast or a cab that would take us somewhere. We were amazingly picked up by a combi (mini bus) and taken almost directly to the rafting place. We accidentally over shot the location, but after a few calls and a bit more wandering (a very common theme here in South America...I end up wandering a lot) we found it. And they even had a restaurant! We ordered lots of lomo saltados (beef sauteed with peppers, tomatoes, onions and french fries over rice) and waited for 4 more friends who were supposed to arrive from Lima to go rafting with us.

They arrived miraculously on time and we all ate breakfast, put on tons of sunscreen and bug spray (tiny mosquitoes everywhere!!!) and then suited up for rafting. We all piled into the back of a truck wearing all our gear, and were taken up river. After carrying the boats down to the water we were given a quick lesson and jumped in! The water was low since we were in the middle of the dry season, but we still had a lot of fun. We were divided into 2 boats, so we tried to race each other. Every time one raft would take the lead they would inevitably get stuck on a giant rock and the other team would pass....only to get stuck on the next rock! But it was fun, and in the middle of the trip the guides had us get out, swim around, and jump off rocks and float down the river. The water was surprisingly warm, and it was fun to float in the water!

After my raft won, we went back to the rafting office. They had a campground with a pavilion, hammocks, a huge lawn, and a rock climbing wall, and in our indecisiveness we ended up just lounging around soaking up the sun for the entire afternoon instead of going to visit wineries or anything. It was super relaxing, and we bought snacks and a couple beers from the teeny shop down the road and laid in the lawn for hours.

When we were all sufficiently eaten alive by the mosquitoes, tired of chips and crackers, and ready to return back to gloomy Lima, we hopped back into a combi and returned to the bus station. It was a mad house (the last evening of a holiday weekend, everyone was headed back to Lima) and we were split up, but we all safely got on buses headed back to Lima. We got back into dark, dreary Lima and I grabbed a quick bite to eat with two of the guys who live near my neighborhood.

Overall, it was a fun trip, and I want to go back to Lunahuana and lounge in the sun and explore the vineyards some day!

My pictures from the weekend: http://kristynspictures.shutterfly.com/6717

Until the next mini-adventure,
~Kristyn