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Puerto Inca
After leaving Arequipa, we drove initially past fields planted with rows and rows of cacti, some of which had blue or white labels stuck all over them. We found out later that the crop is grown not for the cactus itself, but because of the cochineal beetles which infest them, and which are used for their red dye. We turned onto the great Pan American Highway, and after a couple of hours of driving through a lot of very barren and rugged landscape, with huge sand dunes, we went down some hairpin bends, over a hill, and there was the Pacific Ocean!
The next few hours took us through some of the most desolate landscape I have ever seen. We had frequent glimpses of the ocean, at sea level and from cliff tops, as the road wound around the coastline, but on both sides of the road, it looked like all the builders rubble from all the building sites in the whole of Peru had just been strewn across the landscape. It wasn't sand, and it wasn't soil, it wasn't even dust, it was just a mixture of all three, with lots and lots of stones and rocks. It was a bit like driving on the moon. Every now and again, in the middle of this utter wilderness, would be a little square house made out of woven straw panels, some of them didn't even have a roof, just 'windbreaker' style walls. We just didn't know how people would survive there, as there was no water, no vegetation, and no wildlife apart from vultures!
The Pan American Highway is a pretty busy road, with lots of trucks and long distance buses going in both directions. It is also very winding, with lots of hairpin bends, so as if to complicate matters, long stretches of it are being repaired. This involves vast numbers of men (and women) in orange jumpsuits, blue helmets, sunglasses and face masks, stopping traffic in both directions for up to 45 minutes at a time, while they lie down on piles of rubble and have a nap at the side of the road, or wave cheerily and take photos of tourists with their mobile phones.
After one wait of about 20 minutes, we were waved on, so climbed the hill, rounded the blind bend, and came face to face with a crowd of people walking towards us in the middle of the road! The 16th vehicle in a queue of 27 waiting to come through the roadworks from the other end, was a long distance bus, with its driver asleep at the wheel, its doors wide open, and which seemed to have lost all it's passengers!
We managed to find a lovely spot for our roadside lunch, on a cliff top, with a nice view of the surf crashing onto the rocks far below, and vultures with red heads drifting past on the thermals. Due to all the roadworks delays, it no longer looked as though we'd get to Puerto Inca by mid afternoon and in time for a swim, as it happened, it was getting dark by the time we turned off the main road down a REALLY bumpy road, with a sign saying 'Hotel Puerto Inca'. In fact, the only thing that distinguished it from the rest of the moonscape, were two parallel lines of white-painted stones, barely wide enough for the truck to negotiate. Tony played 'Highway to Hell' on his iPod and we all joined in!
Eventually, the ocean came into view again, and the amazing spectacle of a row of thatched beach umbrellas! Just set back from those, was a beachside restaurant / hotel reception / beach bar, and on higher ground, two tiers of 'seaside chalet' style accommodation. Tony said, ' great! Butlins!'
It was the last thing you'd expect to find in the middle of such a godforsaken place, but then, we've realised that in Peru, you should always expect the unexpected! Actually, the rooms were fine, and the plywood walls and doors meant that you could hear the surf pounding on the shore all night. There was the additional surprise of a parrot in a large cage, just outside our room, that said 'Hola', miaowed like a cat, and then laughed with the most amazing giggle! Sad as it was to see it in a cage, it did have us in hysterics. Luckily they put a cover over it at night, or we wouldn't have got any sleep.
We had a few Pisco Sours and a nice meal at the hotel's open air beachfront restaurant, breathing the sea air, with all that extra oxygen - sooo nice to be back at sea level! .......Goodnight.
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