Off I go again
cyan_blue and I set off on the Gringo Trail today. She arrived in Pisco on Friday night, despite the cotton workers' strike which has seen the Pan America Highway close several times this week.
She got to see a bit of Pisco sin Fronteras, which I'm glad about. They were having a monster themed casino fundraiser when she arrived, featuring human slot machines (people in booths holding up random bits of fruit-you could cheat a bit if you paid attention to what fruit they'd already eaten), a spinning wheel with various PsF volunteers, and Mexican wrestling, amongst other games. She also stopped by the site I'd been working on for nearly a fortnight, and helped us with a couple of the finishing touches. I wasn't sure how well she and the PsFers would get along; just fine, it turned out, and Natasha even made us dinner last night.
Huacachina
Huacachina is an oasis, not only literally, but also in Peruvian food. Perú typically overcooks pasta and undercooks chips, but the chips here were good. I'd resigned myself to never seeing veggie burgers in Perú, but they have those here, chickpea based. The same restaurant also serves shakes, another Peruvian rarity, and you can add Milky Ways or other chocolate bars to them. (Milky Ways in the Americas are called Mars Bars everywhere else; actual Milky Ways are called 'Three Musketeers Bars' in the U.S, but I haven't seen those at all in South America.) It's also just a beautiful place, built for relaxing by day and partying by night. We travelled here with a German PsF couple.
The four of us went on a sand dune and sandboarding tour. The dunes are breathtakingly beautiful; the highest sand dune in the world isn't far from here, and it's almost as tall as Kosciuszko-seriously! We went sandboarding down much smaller ones, though. cyan_blue only went down one or two and both of our German friends hurt themselves, but I completed the day unscathed. (I suppose that makes up for the skydiving trip I did for brian1789's birthday last year, where I got hurt, somewhat worse than the Germans.) In any case, we all had fun.
cyan_blue tumbling past
We ran into other PsFers towards the end of the day, including one or two folks I wish I'd had a chance to get to know better. Pisco sin Fronteras is a wonderful place, but since people are always coming and going and it's such a mishmash of cultures and expected social graces, it's hard to know who's open for any real connection, and how to make it. Still, I've decided I'm going to go back there for a couple more days before I skip the country-there's some stuff there I left unfinished.
Tomorrow's destination: Arequipa, possibly with a stop to see the Nazca Lines.