Desert Vacation

Aqueduct in Nasca

Ancient candelabra form on hillside in Paracas

Caves on the Ballenas Islands

One of the Nasca Lines from the air

Peru takes on an entirely different face when seen as a tourist, rather than a resident. Driving in a private car, with AC and staying in nice hotels with hot water and full amenities and hanging out in restaurants where you are as likely to hear English or German as Spanish is a real treat, but far from the world of 99% of Peruvians. But, that’s what I did last week. It was called VACATION !!

The first treat was visiting one of the many fig ice cream stands on the side of the Pan Am Highway, south of Lima. I’ve speeded past these stands many times on the bus, but could only yearn to sample this home-made helado. It was everything and more that I had imagined. Rich and creamy, sticky with fig, cold and smooth. This will only make future drive-bys in the bus more painful.

A stop in the seaside port of Paracas featured a boat trip out to the Balesteras islands, home to the famous Humboldt penguins – the only penguins living in tropical latitudes. They look and act just like their arctic cousins, but apparently spend more time in the chilly Humboldt Current that flows from the Antarctic. The tourist boats are packed with about 30 tourists each, including many Americans. They speed the 20km out to the islands with huge outboards and an English speaking tour guide.

The islands are teeming with life. The abundance of fish draws not only the penguins, but pelicans, terns, gulls, albatross and sea lions.

The birds are in such profusion that their guano (aka bird shit) has been harvested for generations as fertilizer. Housing and processing platforms, where the guano is cleaned of rocks and feathers, dot the islands. The smell of bird shit dominates the air, and the islands are quite literally covered in white guano and nesting birds. The guano is harvested only in the non-nesting season, when gangs of men come to live on the islands – scooping up the poop into canvas bags, taking them to the cleaning racks, then loaded onto transport ships.

In addition, the pounding ocean has carved spectacular grottos and caves and arches, through which crystal blue green water surges. The noise of growling sea lions and screeching birds and pounding waves is quite overwhelming. The trip also passes a unique glyph called the Candelabra. This embellished trident was cut into a sandy hillside. No one knows the when or how or why of the symbol. It is truly remarkable that it has withstood hundreds of years (at least) of rain and wind, though the glyph is on the leeward side and it rains less than 1” per year. Paracas is also an oil and gas port, with huge storage facilities and a fleet of tug boats which dwarf the small fishing punts that dot the touristy waterfront.

The Oasis, near Ica, is a small (2 acre) lake, smack in the middle of towering sand dunes. It is as remarkable as it is beautiful, though highly populated by ex-pats and tourists, who enjoy dune buggy rides and sand-boarding.

Heading further away from the coast, into the deep central Peruvian desert, all wildlife, plants and trees disappear, except for the hardy and thorny Huarango trees which have been planted along the side of the Pan Am Hwy, which crosses the sandy, tan landscape like a big black snake. Along the way are little outposts of humanity – a single straw hut, in the middle of “nowhere”, challenges the mind to calculate the difficulty and purpose of such a hermitic life.

The large desert city of Nasca is a broad, expansive patch of green, set amid towering stark mountains and empty desert. I was struck by the unusual surface of this desert – not sand, but a hard ancient ocean floor, littered with small darkish rocks, ranging is size from softball to pebbles. What puzzles me is how these rocks got scattered so evenly over the desert floor? This geologic coincidence is what made the famous Nasca Lines possible. When the rocks are scraped into windrows, they form a highlighting edge to the lighter desert floor revealed below.

The Lines, of course, are among the great mysteries of our World. Their origin and purpose are unknown. Miles and miles of perfectly straight lines cris-crossing the desert floor are punctuated by primitive, but exquisite figures – monkey, humming bird and others. I absolutely marvel at the construction – at the enormous effort that went into creating these monuments. I can understand the ability to produce the long straight lines, by simply sighting down the line. But, the curves and circles baffle me – how could these be made without guidance from the air or really good GPS? Some say they are landing markers for extra-terrestrials, as they can only be fully appreciated from the air.

The other explanation posited for the lines is that they marked the routes of the many underground rivers which flow under the desert floor. The ancients tapped into these abundant water sources with access structures which spiral down into the ground. At the bottom of each spiral flows a river of crystal clear water, which brought life to the area, in addition to the river, which flows only when rain is falling in the distant Andes mountains. The Spirals are constructed entirely of round river rock, with no mortar. The fact that they have withstood countless earthquakes is a testament to the engineering of the ancient builders.

A nearby patch of edible cactus provided a surprise. The sides of the cacti are covered with what looks like a white powdery mold. In fact, they are a collection of small pellet-like bits, which contain a deep purple-red dye, which is still used today.

It was wonderful to have some time away from my beloved San Luis to explore just a few of the marvels of Peru. And just as good to get back to work on the Playgrounds and other projects.