Posted by 
012005
Despite spending the bulk of the previous day laying around in a hammock gazing sleepily at a real-live oasis I awoke feeling far from refreshed. I’ll never figure it out.
(Perhaps the bartender did put something in my drink. He would have had dozens of opportunities.)
No matter, for I had been prudent enough to retain a small amount of anti-nauseant inhaler which, combined with a shower, a couple cups of coffee, and three good shakes of the head readied me for a lengthy but unarduous travel day that would slowly whisk me away from the oasis paradise of Huacachina. When lunchtime neared I hired a small unkempt taxi to take me over the sand dune to the nearby town of Ica, where I hunkered into a modicum of street food before sitting meditatively for an hour or more waiting for my bus to arrive. When it did I grabbed a couple of beers and a can of Pringles for the road and was treated to a relatively comfortable* afternoon enjoying the repetitively scenic ride to Nazca.
Yeah, that Nazca.
The afternoon had faded into the rearview mirror by the time I disembarked into a throng of touts at the Nazca bus terminal, each one fighting the others for the privilege of not booking me a hotel/flight package. Y’see, there was still plenty enough day left in the day for me to happily spent an hour or more backtracking between every single hotel in the small town, eventually playing the cheapest ones off of one another until I finally haggled a place down to twenty soles for the night. I dropped my stuff in the room and immediately turned tail to hit the sidewalks once again, this time pounding the pavement back-and-forth between the many tourist booths that existed solely to book flights over the world-famous Nazca Lines (and bus tickets to get you out of the otherwise featureless, desolate desert town as soon as you’ve seen them).
And can you believe that I booked myself a spot in a 4-seat Cessna the following morning for just $30US? Nobody else I talked to on the rest of my vacation could, so I guess I did pretty good.
I kept the savings going by ordering the “menu” at a small hole-in-the-wall eatery (it had taken several days of confusion and shoulder shrugging for me to discover that “menu” meant “special of the day”, which was invariably a meaty stew laden with potatoes and other tubers that was repeatedly put in front of me whenever I’d asked to see the…ahem…list of dishes on offer). Not my favourite thing on the menu (!) but it was a cheap way to fill my stomach with hearty food, and as you may have gleaned: “cheap” is my favourite price.
The cheapest way to fill my stomach with beer was to buy a couple at a small store next to the restaurant and take them back to my large and gaudy hotel room for a light nightcap that easily came early. Good thing too, as the following day’s adventures would commence shortly after my alarm started ringing at 7am.
Which is early at the best of times. (And this was shaping up to be among the best of times.)
*This is foreshadowing.
Todd Man Out 