Perú's litter box, Huacachina

After a few days up in the cold mountains and knowing that I was going to be hiking through the frigid heights of the Andes to get to Machu Picchu I decided to take a sabbatical to the hot arid desert of southern Perú. On the way south I spent a grand total of 107.24 minutes in Lima, and decided that it was at least 100 minutes too long. I have heard nothing good about the place and saw nothing from the bus or bus station to change my mind. After giving Lima the slip I rocked down to Ica.

I ended up in the little oasis town just outside of Ica called Huacachina. The small community is surrounded by sand dunes on all sides and in the center is a murky looking puddle of water with supposed curative properties. According to the taxi driver that took me out to town people from all over Perú go there to bathe in the water. He claimed that people with AIDS and cancer had both been cured by a quick dip. Fortunately I was in good heath and did not have even a stubbed toe to dip into the tonic water, not that I would have expected anything more than for it to have come out wet.

This is an interesting facet of the rural culture throughout all of Latin America. Because of limited medical support (especially in the rural areas) people have to believe in the holistic cures (i.e. non-medical related cures). I have no problem with the concept, but there is a huge problem when modern medicine and the non-traditional medicines clash. People will believe that their curandero grandmother knows more about medicine than a trained medical professional. There is a large problem with people not trusting doctors or hospitals. for them it ofent comes down to who are they going to believe: a doctor you can't understand because he speaks educated Spanish with words that are too big for the commoner, or a trusted relative and friend that has known you for life. Under those conditions it is easy to see why they often go with the more accessible, cheaper, and friendlier local cure from family.

I will admit having tried some of the local remedies. Most work on a limited basis. The anti-diarrhea worked like a charm for long enough to get me to the doctor's office 4 hours away. Most decongestants are good for a while. The anti-parasite medicine didn't work at all. My beef is when parents give their child non-traditional medicine and it doesn't work, and they still don't go to the doctor . I tried to convince a friend in my site that he had to go to the hospital one time because he was really sick. He looked at me and said that he would never go to a hospital because, "that is where people go to die." Unfortunately there is no way to argue and win (despite perfect logic) with some Latinos on this topic.

In any case, Huacachina was a great place to sit for a couple of days and do absolutely nothing. There was blue skies, comfortable dry heat, good ceviche, and a hammock that swallowed me for more than one afternoon. One of the days I borrowed a sandboard which is made to look like a ghetto snowboard that includes Velcro straps and no edges, and went out on the sand dunes for some action. It turns out that sand boarding is actually quite boring standing up, with little ability to turn or control the general direction. The speed issue was a non-issue because even on the steepest areas it was slow at best.

The last afternoon there I had the opportunity to go out on a dune buggy. This on the other hand was not boring. I had low expectations going in, expecting that some of the taxi/bus/chiva rides in Panama would reign supreme over a ride with a seatbelt in a dune buggy full of finicky tourists. The chiva rides still were scarier, but I have to hand it to our driver, it was brilliant and as fun as most rollercoasters. The sunset was epic and the stars over the never ending sand were impressively bright.

I felt a little bad about going to the area, especially since some may remember that back in August Perú experienced a rather large earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Ricketier Scale. The Ica was on the outer peripheral of the effected area, but due to cheap building materials the quake still had a devastating effect. Thousands died in Ica alone, and the memorial site constructed was rather impressive. In the end I told myself that the money that i was spending was helping people get back on their feet. In all, this time also helped me to relax and get back on my traveling feet as well. We had traveled hard to get down to Perú, and still had quite a ways to go to get to Cuzco. Relaxing on the oceanless beach turned out to be time well spent.