5/20/10: Huacachina, Peru
[Editor's Note: Once again give a nice round of applause to one of our favorite guest posters, Steve Curry.]
For the first time in my life, my day began on an overnight bus. And for a time in the thousands, it began to an alarm going off. Unfortunately, it was not my alarm and it was 4:30 in the morning. One piece of advice: when you find yourself traveling on an overnight bus, don’t leave your alarm on in your backpack three rows behind you and then sleep through it going off, while everyone else (except zombie Kevin) wakes up to it without knowing the source. Still, it beats waking up to my alarm at home before work. Because I’m in Peru!
On today’s agenda was the end of a 16-hour bus ride to Ica (and watching the enjoyable Spanish version of Up), a ten-minute cab ride, and 12 hours to discover the oasis that is Huacachina, remarkably surrounded by giant sand dunes.
I’ll gloss over the nice lunch and relaxing afternoon by the pool after arriving in Huacachina, and head straight to the main event: sandboarding. As we learned quickly, sandboarding entails going face-first down a dune on your stomach on a waxed board. Picture warm-weather sledding on sand. Or this:
For those of you who don’t know, Kevin and I are kind of competitive. I would say on an average day that we spend together, we can find a dozen things to compete in. Well, Kevin can find a dozen, I can find thirteen. Suffice to say, it didn’t take long to turn sandboarding into a competition. After a particularly long run by Kevin, he challenged me to see who could ride their board out the longest. While there was a formal challenge extended, it was really understood from the start.
If I had to guess, here is what the Curry family was thinking:
Kevin: “I just breezed past Steve; I should have no problem doing this again.”
Steve: “He wants to challenge ME… I’ll show him what I’m made of.”
Dad: “Here they go again…. I’ll show them what they’re made of.”
Zhou: “I wonder if we can get ice cream after this?”
I started things off with a decent run, down a two-hilled dune. I figured it would be good enough to hold up, but maybe Kevin will get lucky. Well, something went wrong on Kevin’s run because he didn’t even make it to the second hill.
K: “Crapnuts!”
S: “Well, this is in the bag.”
D: “That’s not MY son.”
Z: “I don’t know him.”
As Kevin finally walked down the hill, I was too busy making fun of him to even notice dad take off down the hill. And sure enough, he blew past Kevin’s modest run, hit the second hill, and promptly blew past my ending spot.
K: “Alright! Steve didn’t win!”
S: “Very impressive, Pops.”
D: “Still got it boys.”
Z: “I like ice cream.”
So kudos to dad for teaching his sons that their father still has some game. And kudos to Zhou for having already learned that no matter how much the Curry brothers obnoxiously compete with each other, you can always just ignore them and think about ice cream.
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Picture of the Day: We finished the day with a nice sunset over the dunes.
