Peru - Arrival, Huacachina

Published: 12.06.2018

Hello dear friends, relatives, acquaintances and other blog fetishists,

By popular demand - well, actually it was vehemently demanded - I have actually managed to write something about my trip. It takes a lot of work and of course a lot of love. I'm still experimenting a lot. I am not a true digital native. The technical possibilities are also somewhat limited. I'm getting by with internet cafes and my smartphone. Hundreds of photos have to be sorted/transferred, texts have to be written, and then everything has to be uploaded to the internet somehow. Uploading is usually the tricky part! I haven't edited the photos yet - some of them haven't even been rotated. I still need some tools for that. Not to mention how to use this blog properly. At least on the long bus rides I have plenty of time to write something. I think there will be some improvements. But now I finally wanted to start this thing. And I'm curious about your comments. Which is usually my specialty. Please also don't take my other historical or content-related explanations too seriously. I have presented them according to the best of my knowledge and linguistic understanding.

Well, then, have fun reading. Last but not least, I hopefully also have a good basis for keeping my memories fresh.

Stefan in selfie fever

Huacachina

After a good 18 hours, we arrived in Lima via a short stopover in Madrid. The taxi ride from the airport to the bus station confirmed our decision not to stay in Lima but to continue on. A gigantic city, which is usually covered in fog at this time of year. After another 5 hours by bus, we arrived in Ica or rather the oasis of Huacachina. Our actual first destination. A quiet, relaxed hostel to recover from the journey and plan the next steps. In the afternoon we walked to the oasis for the first time to get an overview and to walk in huge sand dunes for the first time. The main attraction are the tours through the dunes with the thundering buggies. But that was enough for the day. Back to the hostel, try to stay awake until 9 o'clock to get rid of jet lag quickly and then get a lot of sleep!

Our first hostel. A dream. Dune in the background!

Oezil in altitude training camp before the World Cup

These are buggies racing through the desert.

The city of Ica can be clearly seen in the background. About 300,000 inhabitants.

Islas Ballestas and Paracas Nature Reserve

On the second day, we went on a tour to the Islas Ballestas (a bit exaggeratedly also called little Galápagos) and the Paracas Nature Reserve (essentially a desert). Fun facts! The only desert right by the sea. 2mm of precipitation per year. Almost no vegetation. Huge variety of fish thanks to the Humboldt Current, which keeps the water nice and cold, so the Humboldt penguins and sea lions live on the islands like pigs in clover. There are also huge bird populations on the islands - thanks to the fish supply. We took the boat trip together with a school class.

Fun fact! Every 8 years, miners come for 3 months to mine guano (world's best fertilizer - bird droppings) worth 2 billion US dollars. Many years ago, this even led to the Guano War with the neighboring countries.