Shoreline Receding: Ica

Beautiful view near my house, now that I am finally starting to see some sunlight!

Hey everyone, so I still don't have those pictures from my trip to Huaycan I wanted to share so I'll just post about my last weekend's trip to Ica/Paracas. I am planning to head out to Huaycan this afternoon again so I'll post about it at some point. Anyway, I decided I needed a break from the nonstop noise and stimulation that Lima can provide, so I hopped on a bus on Thursday the 8th to Ica, Peru. I am slowly getting a bigger picture of this country. There are small, well insulated parts of Lima where you can see the benefits of Peru's development, but much of the rest of the country seems to be largely stagnant. Though I still need to see more than just coastal Peru, it seems like the biggest source of income outside of Lima is through tourism, which can only do so much in the busy parts of the year. It's overwhelming how saturated the market is with people informally trying to sell you something in buses or on the streets. That and the country's taxis/mototaxis, even that is such an informal economy that anyone can get a sticker for their car and compete with others to give the lowest price to passengers. Anyway, the bus ride was only a nice 5 hours, and I passed a lot of interesting sights.

Bus ride to Ica

I made it by 6 pm and took a cab to the Laguna Huacachina, a little resort 5 kms away from Ica featured on the back of the 50 soles bill. It is a beautiful little desert oasis.

Laguna Huacachina

Sandboarding

Desert in Ica

Friday morning, I caught a cab to go explore the city of Ica. He was fixing it when I made the deal, so I figured a low price wouldn't be bad, since it practically stalled the whole way up the hill out of the oasis. It turned out the driver Cristian happened to be a sneaky guy who, upon getting me to the Plaza de Armas, started telling me how dangerous it was to walk a various number of blocks in different directions from the plaza. So he said he would drive me over to the town's beloved church of Luren before letting me go. It hosted the patron Señor de Luren, a moreno Christ statue, until a 7.9 earthquake that destroyed 30% of the city in August 2007 left it in ruins. It survived and is kept in another convent. Now, according to the story of the statue, it has survived being dumped overboard to save the boat on its way from Spain, a fire in 1918, and this earthquake. The story goes that the patron gained a large following as it was provided for a chapel in Ica by the Spanish founder of the region, who upon regretting the damages done, had made a hospital for the indigenous people. The parade for the saint happens annually, tomorrow.

Iglesia Señor de Luren, destroyed by August 2007 earthquake

Before quake

Procession on 3rd Monday of October

After that, he took me to see the statue, and before I knew it, he was taking me on a wild tour around Ica, without us ever agreeing on a price per hour or anything. But he had some interesting commentaries about Ica, an overall very impoverished city whose people seemed to have a really depressed, downtrodden attitude. Next, he started to tell me about stories of the witches (brujas) of Ica, some evil, some good, and there is a specific neighborhood called Cachiche where they used to congregate. When I got out of the cab I was stormed by children who wanted to tell the story, and Cristian chose the lucky one who would get the tip.