Ica y Huacachina

Alrighty, so after we hit up Paracas and saw the penguins..which was my favorite part!..we headed to Ica, that very afternoon. As I said before, we wasted no time. 

Grape Stomping Zone w/ Press

Vineyard at La Casa del Catador

Our guide serving up some
wine to taste.

Once in Ica, we went on a tour of the city and visited some wineries, called "bodegas." First, we went to La Casa del Catador. At this location, our guide told us about the history of growing grapes and the process of producing wine. They even still had the place set up where they used to crush grapes by foot. We were informed that before people stomped grapes, they used horses to get the job done. The problem with horses doing the job is that "they don't ask to leave to do their necessities" as our guide very politely explained. Haha. Gross! They eventually switched to slave labor, who seemed to treat every harvest as a festival and accompanied grape crushing with music and dancing. They hold a grape stomping festival every year to remember the past. Talk about a difference in culture and perspective about the past - instead of trying to dismiss ever using slave labor, they celebrate it and the achievements that they have been blessed with since then. After seeing the grounds, we tasted a few of their selections. There was the "Perfect Lover" which is a Pisco and Borgona mix. We had Borgona, which is a sweet red wine. We also tried Pisco, which has a special tasting method - smell the pisco on an inhale, drink the pisco, then taste the pisco as you exhale after swallowing. There was also a pisco that was mixed with cream and maca, which kind of reminded me of Bailey's, as in it is creamy alcohol. 

Carapulcra, Sopa Seca, & Duck

The restaurant at this Bodega was pretty nice and we enjoyed a lunch of local dishes. We ate sopa seca, carapulcra, and duck. Sopa seca is basically a drier version of spaghetti. The seasonings were good. Carapulcra seemed like the refried beans you get at a Mexican food restaurant, but it is actually made with dried potatoes. The duck was well cooked and had good flavors. Overall, I like the "platos tipicos" of Ica. 

Next, we visited Bodega Lazo, which has been around for over 200 years! There we got to try various stages of fermented Borgona and Pisco. They still use the old style clay vase looking jugs to store their product (we were recently informed that they are not frequently used because they are very difficult to clean - yay! :/). They served the wine with what looked like a bamboo stick with a part of it cut out to scoop out the wine like a ladel. This place was sticking to its roots with how they do things. I can respect that. Probably a more recent change, however, was that they sell their wine in plastic bottles, like the ones we get when we buy milk in the States! So great. The ambiance of this place is worth mentioning as it was rather eclectic. In the barn area where we did the tasting, there were portraits of all kinds of people from Napoleon to the Madonna. There was a dried aligator hanging up. It had odds and ends for days! 

Fun Times at the Sand Dunes!

After a little wine tasting and food, what better thing to do than go play in the sand?! In the nearby city of Huacachina, there are awesome sand dunes. We arrived in Huacachina and were quickly shuffled into a buggy that fit 15 people and headed up the dunes. Oh man, that is a fun ride and such an adrenaline rush! It was so beautiful to look out over the smooth sand hills and back down at the oasis. The driver would gun it to get us up the dunes and then we would creep over and basically roll straight down over other dunes. It felt just like being on a rollercoaster. So ridiculous and so fun. After a bit, we got out of the buggy and had a photo shoot, of course. Then, we tried our hand at sandboarding. The first hill we went down, we sat down on our boards and used our hands for steering and breaking. The second hill was much much higher and way more horrifying, we went down on our boards on our stomach holding on for dear life with our hands and using our feet to steer and break. For the last few hills, that were quite short and not crazy steep, we stood up and approached them like snowboarders. It's not my strong suit, that is certain, but playing in the sand is always fun. After a few more exciting steep declines in the buggy, we headed back to a hill above the oasis to watch the sunset. Good times. Good times. 

Oasis of Huacachina

Once we got back to town, with a few detours along the way, such as stopping at a the temporary building where mass is being held until the cathedral can be redone that was damaged in an earthquake, we headed to the bus station a little late to catch our Soyuz bus to Nasca. Oh Peruvian time.. 

After Nasca, we headed back to Ica. We loved the oasis after our sand dune experience and wanted to have a little more time there, plus it is closer to Lima than Nasca (I'm always down for having shorter bus rides). 

It would have been nice to see a few more bodegas and get a better feel for the "wine country" part of Peru, otherwise we had a great time getting to know this area of Peru. :) 

~nos vemos~