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  Ica, Peru
Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Ica's busy streets are filled with market stalls, auto-rickshaws and beeping horns. In fact, my first impression is that it reminds me of Delhi. The city is famous in Peru as the wine producing region and shops selling the local plonk are everywhere. It also has an excellent museum, the Museo Regional. Here I saw a impressive collection of ceramics from the Nazca and other cultures along with well preserved cloth and quipus. Another room contained human exhibits including trophy heads and extreme examples of the deformed skulls I'd seen in many places. There were also a number of trepanned skulls with holes drilled in the top as part of some ancient healing or ritual. The bone regrowth around the holes shows that the patients must have survived the treatment.
The collection is still missing a magnificent funeral cloak stolen two years ago. It features on a poster of Interpol's most wanted art and antiquities along with Munch's 'The Scream' and a Renoir stolen from Tokyo. I couldn't help thinking that the posters were displayed not to help catch the thief but to show the value placed on their missing artifact.
I'd noticed very few tourists in Ica, as most apparently head straight to Huacachina nearby. This desert oasis town sounded slightly dull to me but other travellers had raved about it so I thought I'd go and see it. I had fond memories of auto-rickshaws so took one out to Huacachina for 4 soles. As we left Ica mountains seemed to raise up ahead. Then I realised they weren't mountains but sand dunes. Huacachina is an extraordinary sight. A green lagoon surrounded with palm trees, a few buildings and huge sand dunes like something from a movie.
Sand boarding is popular here but I'd done that in Chile so instead went for a walk in the dunes. Reaching the top of one I could see the desert stretching on as far as the horizon. I'd heard you could find fossils in the sand but didn't see any and the sand was really hot on my feet so I headed back to the town to dip my feet in the lagoon.
Huacachina is a lovely spot and I enjoyed just sitting and reading in the shade of a palm tree for a while. But there wasn't much of interest and I wondered what the tourists here did all day. I took a taxi back to Ica where I could get good food at a cheaper price.

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Oasis in the sands

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