aventura de peru. dia 6.
Man oh man. Life is good.
So I had my first bartending shift on Wednesday night, at Kokopelli Backpacker Hostel in Paracas, my home for the week.So much fun to be behind the bar again. My fellow bartenders for the evening were Callam, cute little Aussie boy, and Courtney a UCSB alum like me! Although she finished her studies just last year. Getting old here (kidding).
The night was great, full of people from all over the world, pausing for a night at this beautiful beachside hostel. A lot of the locals come through as well, as this is one of the few bars here in Paracas.Towards the middle of my shift, all the other girls that are volunteering with me (there are 7 girls and 1 guy, go figure) came to sit at the bar and we all got heavily involved in a game called Cheers Gov´nor which is basically a numbers game where everytime you get to 21 you make a rule for one of the numbers leading up to it. If you screw up on your way around the circle, you drink. The tasks for each number get progressively more risque as most drinking games often progress. This particular round combusted before any clothes were shed though. Phew. The night ended with a load of salsa dancing. I was asked by a beautiful Argentinian girl to dance, so of course, I obliged. She´s traveling with her boyfriend and doesn´t speak a lick of English. Had a blast! We closed up the bar around 1:30am and then off to bed.
The next morning I woke up for sand-boarding. Feeling uncertain about how I would get back in the evening, I caught my transfer bus to Huacachina with Miren (from Spain) and Kelsey (from the UK) where we checked in at their hostel. They are moving on in their adventures and I would be heading back to Paracas after sand-boarding.
After arriving in Huacachina we had some lunch and wandered around the lake, or pond rather, and we actually decided to have a row for 15 soles...the equivalent of just over 5 bucks.
After our row, we wandered around the lake a bit more,
climbed a tree,
and then headed back to the hostel to pack for our dune-buggy adventure.
Our tour was set to begin at 4pm and would last two hours, taking us through sunset on the dunes. We were obviously very excited for the trip, but little did we know our expectations would be far surpassed.
Our buggy driver, Julio, is a nut!! The ride was literally like a roller coaster, except with a roller coaster you can somewhat predict what is going to happen next because you can see the track prior to getting on the ride. With this ride we would come up on these dunes with nearly vertical drops and he would gun the engine over them so that we would literally fly out of our seats. And Miren labeled my seat as ¨the fat person¨seat because the seat belt was outrageously large with no means of adjusting it. So this ride was rather dangerous, which made it all the more enjoyable.
We arrived at a summit and Julio let us get out to take some pictures before we would start our sand-boarding adventure.
From there he took us to where we would have our first three rides. The first dune was a baby, with each one getting progressively more nutty. I chose to ride down face first on my belly because I just don´t have the snow-boarding skills to bomb these dunes like that. And the boards literally had some velcro straps to attach your feet to, no ankle support, no lush boots to strap into. So I chose to save my ankles for the Inca Trail, and went head first instead, which proved to be much more terrifying as you get a lot more speed.
Unfortunately, I don´t have any pictures of actually boarding because I didn´t want to take my nice camera out in the sand. But if you look closely in this next picture you can see the tiny people at the top of our last ride. I went head first on a board down this giant. Nuts!!
That dot just below the ridge is a boarder.
After the sand-boarding commenced we rode the buggy back to Huacachina where we were able to get some beautiful photos of the sunset before I had to head back to grab a taxi and then a bus back to Paracas.
All my worries were in vain as the means of getting back was cake. I´m getting more and more comfortable with this traveling alone thing.
And then we reach the end of another magical day. The only con to the whole trip, I lost my sweet safari hat. It flew out of the buggy when Julio was coming to pick us up from our last run. Boo.
I am currently working the morning shift at the bar. Which is why I have all the free time in the world to upload pictures and such. After work I may head out for a kite-surfing lesson...the problem is you are at the mercy of the wind god. And I am only here for a few more days...you have to get 6 hrs worth of lessons in before you get to go out on the water. So there´s a chance there will not be enough wind in the amount of time I have left here in order to finish my lessons...so I´m not sure whether I´m going to try for it or not.
Did I mention I´ve commissioned a local jeweler to make me a necklace from beautiful Andean stones?! Gah! It´s stupposed to be ready today. Pictures to follow.
Ciao for now folks.
So I had my first bartending shift on Wednesday night, at Kokopelli Backpacker Hostel in Paracas, my home for the week.So much fun to be behind the bar again. My fellow bartenders for the evening were Callam, cute little Aussie boy, and Courtney a UCSB alum like me! Although she finished her studies just last year. Getting old here (kidding).
The night was great, full of people from all over the world, pausing for a night at this beautiful beachside hostel. A lot of the locals come through as well, as this is one of the few bars here in Paracas.Towards the middle of my shift, all the other girls that are volunteering with me (there are 7 girls and 1 guy, go figure) came to sit at the bar and we all got heavily involved in a game called Cheers Gov´nor which is basically a numbers game where everytime you get to 21 you make a rule for one of the numbers leading up to it. If you screw up on your way around the circle, you drink. The tasks for each number get progressively more risque as most drinking games often progress. This particular round combusted before any clothes were shed though. Phew. The night ended with a load of salsa dancing. I was asked by a beautiful Argentinian girl to dance, so of course, I obliged. She´s traveling with her boyfriend and doesn´t speak a lick of English. Had a blast! We closed up the bar around 1:30am and then off to bed.
The next morning I woke up for sand-boarding. Feeling uncertain about how I would get back in the evening, I caught my transfer bus to Huacachina with Miren (from Spain) and Kelsey (from the UK) where we checked in at their hostel. They are moving on in their adventures and I would be heading back to Paracas after sand-boarding.
After arriving in Huacachina we had some lunch and wandered around the lake, or pond rather, and we actually decided to have a row for 15 soles...the equivalent of just over 5 bucks.
After our row, we wandered around the lake a bit more,
climbed a tree,
and then headed back to the hostel to pack for our dune-buggy adventure.
Our tour was set to begin at 4pm and would last two hours, taking us through sunset on the dunes. We were obviously very excited for the trip, but little did we know our expectations would be far surpassed.
Our buggy driver, Julio, is a nut!! The ride was literally like a roller coaster, except with a roller coaster you can somewhat predict what is going to happen next because you can see the track prior to getting on the ride. With this ride we would come up on these dunes with nearly vertical drops and he would gun the engine over them so that we would literally fly out of our seats. And Miren labeled my seat as ¨the fat person¨seat because the seat belt was outrageously large with no means of adjusting it. So this ride was rather dangerous, which made it all the more enjoyable.
We arrived at a summit and Julio let us get out to take some pictures before we would start our sand-boarding adventure.
From there he took us to where we would have our first three rides. The first dune was a baby, with each one getting progressively more nutty. I chose to ride down face first on my belly because I just don´t have the snow-boarding skills to bomb these dunes like that. And the boards literally had some velcro straps to attach your feet to, no ankle support, no lush boots to strap into. So I chose to save my ankles for the Inca Trail, and went head first instead, which proved to be much more terrifying as you get a lot more speed.
Unfortunately, I don´t have any pictures of actually boarding because I didn´t want to take my nice camera out in the sand. But if you look closely in this next picture you can see the tiny people at the top of our last ride. I went head first on a board down this giant. Nuts!!
That dot just below the ridge is a boarder.
After the sand-boarding commenced we rode the buggy back to Huacachina where we were able to get some beautiful photos of the sunset before I had to head back to grab a taxi and then a bus back to Paracas.
The tiny town of Huacachina
Kelsey, me, Julio (our driver) and Miren!
And then we reach the end of another magical day. The only con to the whole trip, I lost my sweet safari hat. It flew out of the buggy when Julio was coming to pick us up from our last run. Boo.
I am currently working the morning shift at the bar. Which is why I have all the free time in the world to upload pictures and such. After work I may head out for a kite-surfing lesson...the problem is you are at the mercy of the wind god. And I am only here for a few more days...you have to get 6 hrs worth of lessons in before you get to go out on the water. So there´s a chance there will not be enough wind in the amount of time I have left here in order to finish my lessons...so I´m not sure whether I´m going to try for it or not.
Did I mention I´ve commissioned a local jeweler to make me a necklace from beautiful Andean stones?! Gah! It´s stupposed to be ready today. Pictures to follow.
Ciao for now folks.
posted by Sabrina @ 9:57 AM
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