Coli’s Parents Visit Peru – Part 3
Friday, May 8th
We hailed a taxi ($1.70) for two of us to the Cusco airport to return to Lima and another taxi to Nicole’s host home. We’re beginning to get into the rhythm of traveling the Peruvian way. I have been talking in multiple Spanish sentences at a time, but when I do that, then I get a rapid response of Castellano (Spanish) back from the locals. When I got in a jam, I turned to the real pro - Cyndee. She had a knack at understanding the fast speaking people and responded well to help us move along on our journey.
The last two hotels had no hot (or warm) water, so it was so nice to get a shower at the house. Since our travels will take us close to when we need to get our flight home, we shopped for water and uvas sin semillas (seedless grapes) and then repacked for the flight, plus luggage to return with most of Nicole’s purchases, collectibles, and clothes she couldn’t afford to carry on her back for the extra two months in South America after her study-abroad finishes – three of the weeks will be working in a poor village outside Quito, Ecuador with “Volunteers for Peace”.
We then spent 1.5 hours with a very patient and resourceful Lucia (ISA staff) to help us schedule our weekend excursions. Lucia reserved buses, a boat, hostel, etc. We then headed back to Miraflores, to two of the biggest souvenir markets in Peru (the Indian Market and the Inca Plaza). We were hungry so we first ate at Pepe’s. I doused my chicken with aji, of course. After shopping, we headed back to Pepe’s for fresh cooked doughnuts covered with a syrup. Not enough soles (money) to pay for dessert (too many souvenirs) or for a taxi back home, so I left Cyndee at the table and headed to the ATM machine next door (pre-established the location earlier). Uh oh! “No link available”. I spent the next twenty minutes walking to seven bank’s ATMs. They all said either “No link available” or “No balance available”. All the passwords for our backup cards were back at the house. Luckily, Cyndee remembered a password off the top of her head for one of our charge cards. Whew! She saved the day (well, night). We walked a few blocks to Kennedy Parque where Cyndee got three gorgeous pairs of earings for 14 soles (less than $5.00 total). Lastly, we walked for ten minutes to the Parque de Amor
(a provocative Sculpture of Love), an artistic highlight that is associated with Miraflores.
The next morning we got a taxi to the bus (Cruz del Sur). The buses were like first class all the way – then we heard that there were even more plush seats and service on the first floor or the bus. We had leg rests, food and beverage service, and movies. Our first stop was to Paracas in order to take a boat cruise to the Islas Ballestas, Peru’s version of the Galapagos Islands that included all sorts of birds, sea lions, and penguins. It was a beautiful day with beautiful surroundings. We continued on the next bus to Oasis de Huacachina – for one of the most intense adrenal-rush experiences of our lives. We arrived a few hours early for our dune-buggy appointment, so we lounged by the hotel pool and had a snack at their restaurant. At first I thought we would all get our own dune buggy to ride the sand dunes, but NO! We had a professional racecar-style driver strap in the other 11 of us in rollercoaster style harnesses. What were we in for??? We were in for the ride of our lives!!! These were not sand dunes…these were sand mountains! Even at the top of 300, 400, and 1000 foot apexes, we could only see more sand on the horizon. Amazing! The driver’s goal was to push everything to the limits – the speed, the turns, cresting the top of the hills, going airborne, etc. There was lots of screaming going on. Four times we stopped to do some “sandboarding” – which is like snowboarding (single ski) but instead of snow we skied down sand. For most of us, we laid down on the ski more like a toboggan. That was fine for little people, but I had to work hard to keep my arms in on this little board, otherwise they would be sandpapered to death (not like snow). These driving pros timed our night to peak on the sand ridge just as a sunset was commencing. What a sight. What a rare experience!
After a delicious dinner, we took a local bus to Nasca for tomorrow’s excursion. Fortunately another hostel’s guy met the bus. When we told him we already had reservations, he have us a general direction for our hostel. When we got close, none of the locals knew of the hostel or the street it was on. The three women were cooking foods outside their laundry mat. But they were so nice and a young boy went around trying to help us from his bicycle. We found the hostel just one block over and half a block up from them. And those people didn’t even recognize the name of the street. Maybe they keep renaming the streets or the locals have their own names
We had reservations for 9 a.m. for a van to take us to our 20 minute flight over the famous Nazca lines. The ancient Nazca civilization dug these massive figures between 500 BC and 500 AD, but they weren’t discovered by modern civilization until they were noticed from an airplane in 1927. Like Nicole said in her blog, we saw all the famous figures such as the monkey, spider, whale, and hummingbird (to give you an idea of the size, the hummingbird is 217 by 315 ft). The six-seater plane was very comfortable until the pilot would tip the plane sharply so the wing’s tip would point to the figures. This led Cyndee to make a contribution into the little bag from the seat pocket. Our flight was allocated to us almost two hours after we were told, so I had to beg the van driver (with money too) to drop off the other three people, take us to our hotel to pick up our things and he got us to the bus station with 15 minutes to spare - another close call. We had the plush bus again as we traveled 4.5 hours north back to Lima and the house. Aaaah!
We packed everything up, thanked Austry for her hospitality, got a taxi to the airport, and got to the check-in line at the airport. I told the airline that I would need to pay for an extra check-in bag. They said only one bag per person. I told them that we had all of our daughter’s stuff and there was no other option. I also told them that their website said that I could pay for a second bag. I was then told – “Oh, that is only for domestic flights. In the small print it says only one bag per person for international.” So our creative juices started flowing since “failure was not an option” (Apollo 13 motto). We got out of line and put anything heavy into our carry-on and then merged the three bags of stuff into two bags. I kept dragging the bag to be weighed until we got both maxed out on weight. Fortunately the third bag could collapse a lot to be considered a “carry-on”. Now the exciting part – Nicole was expecting to be returning to the airport around 9 p.m. from her excursion and we had to be through security at 10 p.m. We were looking forward to seeing her on Mother’s Day and trade a few stories over food. We kept waiting, but no Nicole. We found out later that they didn’t arrive until 11 p.m. This put us late into the security lines. In fact, when I was at the security processing point, a guy said “Are you Randon”, I said “Yes” and he took us through a special door to our gate. As soon as we got on board, they closed the door to the plane! There was never a dull moment on our trip, however everything always worked out.
*** We have to honestly say that our visit to Peru is one of the highlights of our life!
It wouldn’t have happened without Nicole broadening her horizons, inviting us to visit, and planning an unforgettable itinerary…and the joy of working things out along the way in a foreign country. Thank you Nicole and the kind people of Peru for this experience!
Abrazos y besos (hugs and kisses)
Mom and Dad (Cyndee and Rand)
(AN: Wow, this is actually the first time that I found out what my parents did after we parted on Monday. I'm so happy they had the chance to experience some of Peru's highlights - and hopefully you enjoyed reading about them from another perspective!)
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