Holy Sandboarding Batman!

Hello all!
We have begun our freetravel adventures and are now officially Peruvian vagabonds. On sunday, we made our way to the bus station, leaving Arequipa behind. Unfortuanately, along with the great city, we also left Eli and Amanda behind. Sickness was the decisive element, as our group had to part ways again, if only briefly. Fourteen hours, and a terrible Morgan Freeman movie later, we made it to the town of Pisco. Learning the ways of making plans for ourselves, we had a bit of a scramble finding a place to stay as we squinted in the morning sunlight, blind like bats after the long ride. Once we finally decided on a hostel and asked the taxi cab driver to take us there, he smiled and told us that our first choice had collapsed in the major earthquake three years prior. Luck found us as a nice women, who happened to be at the bus station, heard of our troubles and told us of her hostel that we could stay at for a good price. Zombie-like, we didn´t have too much energy to do anything, so we settled on lounging at the beach in Paracas for the day. Several hours later, early in the morning the next day, Eli and Amanda returned, healthy and good to go. They told us tales of quite the hospital visit, as our sickly companion had immediately made his presence known to everyone in the hospital, rivaling that of Alejandros airport antics. Speeding through water, we made our way to the San Balletas islands, or, ¨The Poor Man´s Galapagos.¨ Dolphins, sea lions, penguins, Peruvian boobies (Patrick´s favorite), cormorans, pelicans, sea otters, and even some starfish were providing a splendid symphony to our ears and a circus for our cameras. An hour and a half later, we left, taking with us some great pictures, smiles, and guano (bird poop) all over Jordi´s life jacket. They say its good luck. An eventful rickshaw ride a day later to the bus stop, we were bound for Ica. Again, fortune found us, as we were greeted at the bus stop and swept away to another place to sleep with, as we soon found, the most comfortable beds of the trip. Ica is hot, really really hot, as our group ventured out on the town only to surrender to the powers of mother nature. The city is suprisingly big for what we thought, full of aggressive drivers, and loud horns. We found sanctuary in the Original Museum of Ica, learning the ancient history of the indigenous. Lucky for us, they specialized in preserving their dead in mummy-like caskets, as they were on full display for us to see. Interesting stuff. We managed to hold our lunch in our stomachs and returned to the hostel. Yesterday was quite the hoot. The group made its way to the Huachachina (spelling?) for some dune buggying and sandboarding, for some, the highlight of the trip thus far. We piled into the buggies and the drivers took off, like mad men with ants in their pants. A rollercoaster on sand still does not give our experience justice, but you get the idea. We came just short of doing several flips on multiple occasions. Sand boarding is quite different from our native snowboarding, but incredible nonetheless. By far, Jordan takes the gold medal with the most intense wipeout, yet still still undeterred from riding more dunes. She showed everyone up, claiming to have had no previous experience of snowboarding, but, clearly that was a blatant lie. Bumpy rides, some star gazing, a shortage of gasoline, we made it back alive and unbelievably in one piece. A twelve hour bus ride and here we are, back in Arequipa on a short layover to Puno. We have to go catch another bus. Over and out.

With lots of love,
Boots and Q-tip.
aka: Patricio and Jordi.