Sonrisas and Sand Dunes

More and more I am in love with Pacha Mama, Madre Tierra, Mother Earth. I have spent the last ten days moving up and down the coastal deserts of Peru, exploring sand dunes, swimming at dusk and dawn, marveling at the strange beauty bestowed so differently upon all the many places of our planet. After galloping through cities in the north, wandering Lima for a couple lazy days, Sarah and I took a bus south to a desert oasis. I have heard this term, desert oasis, but never really understood what it meant or should look like. Instead it is a term that has had the same meaning to me as any other item from a book of fantasies or faraway places I´ll never see. But amidst the hot city bustle of Ica is the small town of Huachachina (pronounced Waca-cheena, click here for photo link), a community of 95 unreasonably affable residents living around a palm-tree-lined lagoon that sits like a droplet in the bottom of a bowl of rolling dunes on every side. The dunes themselves appear improbable and majestic, an infinite set of hills extending and folding into each other, ubiquitious in their rolling golden colors. That first evening we took a dune buggy ride into the desert. Our driver´s name was Sonrisas, or Smiles, and he drove like a madman, riding us to the top of small shiftless mountains only to take us right back at full speed. It felt like a rollercoaster without tracks, and every minute I had to wipe the sand from my eyes and the drool from my cheeks. At the tops of the bigger dunes, we waxed snowboards with candles and then rode facefirst 80 meters downhill into the golden valleys.

It seems everytime there is a beautiful place, locals in South America find a way to innoculate it with an extreme sport. Ziplining over rainforests. Canyoning in waterfalls. Sandboarding down mountainous dunes. It is absurd, almost perverse in a way, but a mostly wonderful and thrilling way to enjoy the earth´s treats.

Before I left for Ecuador, I was often asked why I was going. Why Ecuador? Why South America? Why do any of the stuff that you are doing? And I was always ready with an outstanding number of reasons that at the time seemed logical and justifiable. But once I arrived, when someone asked me, "So, what are you doing here," I could not give a good reason. It seems I forgot them all. So instead I would say, "Just chilling," which was probably closer to the truth than any premise I provided before. Some friends accused me of "going on a quest," an expression I disliked and denied fervently because it seemed to imply a cheesy degree of soul-searching. But nine weeks later, I confess, I have gathered such a collection of images and feelings that I might just be guilty of having gone on a quest and fulfilled it.

If I were more inclined to organized religion, I would have been persuaded to become religious while sitting in the resplendent Catedral Nueva (New Cathedral) in Cuenca, but instead I have found my spirit invigorated by the geography and natural world of Peru and Ecuador. I usually believe that it is the people you meet on a trip that comprises its true value, but here the treasures of my journey glisten with sunsets and landscapes. And while I have made many friends and acquaintances, it is my communication and connection with Mother Earth I will remember best. Wind whistling between sunlit sand dunes. Singing rainforests. Embracing waterfalls. Swimming in pacific dawns and dusks.

Tomorrow we leave Peru, taking a bus out of Mancora, where the sand is white, the beach filled with soccer games and kite surfers, and the sun sets like a melting teardrop against the horizon. And every hour is happy hour. We are crossing the border and returning to the Andean mountains on our way to colonial Cuenca. In another few days we will return to Quito, and after that I will fly back to the States on May 2nd. I apologize for the lack of blogs and quality recently. If there is any indication that I am having as much fun as possible in my last days of this vacation, it is that I have taken few notes recently, and so I have had little to transpose to here. But expect one or two last blogs next week, equipped with pictures. Hasta pronto, Sam