Our visit to Ica was a brief stopover which lasted no more than twelve hours, but what an awesome twelve hours it was. Compared to Paracas, this town was full of life and reminded me in many ways of our beloved Asian cities; colourful and chaotic with a dark exotic twist.
However, our Ica adventures truly began when we clambered into a tuk tuk heading to the sand dunes, a few miles South in Huacachina. Here, we found a tiny settlement built around a small oasis in the midst of what seems like a vast and endless desert. The community survives solely on tourists who visit in order to get a closer look at the stunning white sand dunes which is exactly what we intended on doing.
After a little haggling we strapped ourselves into to the back of a dune buggy and zoomed off in the direction of the desert. It was a bumpy ride to say the least but exhilarating as we plummeted down the sandy hills, gathering just enough momentum to roll back up to the top. Some were so steep that it was impossible to tell what we would face the other side until we were already teetering over the edge and it was too late to retreat back the way we came. We were enjoying ourselves so much on this extended rollercoaster ride that we almost didn't notice the incredible views creeping up on us as we climbed higher higher. The moment we stopped and caught a glimpse of the scene behind us, it was quite breathtaking. In the blazing sunshine, the white sand turned golden and on this clear day we could just about make out the ends of the desert and the beginnings of the nearest life out on the horizon.
The next time we stopped was to unload the sand boards from the back of the buggy; it was time for a different kind of fun! Though I learnt to ski practically before I could walk, I've never tried my hand (or feet) at snowboarding so I was pretty excited to give it a go. The beauty of substituting the slopes for the sand dunes meant that when I would inevitably tumble head over heels, I'd hit soft warm sand rather than icy cold snow. With the likelihood of pain considerably diminished, we were free to throw ourselves down at ridiculous speeds, not really caring whether or not our boards could keep up. We started with smaller gradients and worked our way up until the final few were almost vertical. Some we tackled standing, others on our bums, and the steepest we took to going down head first on our tummies. Any way we tried, it was so much fun!
After all that excitement we were craving a glass of wine and so on our way back to Ica we stopped off at the El Catador winery. To our pleasant surprise, we were offered a free tour of the bodega followed by a tastings session of the various wines and piscos made on site. Our guide was a lovely Peruvian guy called Jorge who explained in detail how they transform their grapes into wine by stamping on them for hours and storing the juice in clay jars (as opposed to the traditional barrels used elsewhere in South America.) Once fermented, they then heat the wine to extract the alcohol which once condensed, becomes the popular Peruvian brandy, pisco.
Enough talk of the process though, he said; what really matters is the result! Jorge led us straight to the bar where he had one dry white and three sweet wines ready for us to taste. Before filling our glasses, however, he warned us that the Peruvians' idea of dry wine is equivalent to our sweet wine, their sweet wine is like our super sweet wine, and their super sweet wine is practically honey. He wasn't wrong but fortunately all three of us are guilty of a sweet tooth and we absolutely loved them. My favourite was the one they call 'Perfect Love Wine' which tastes as delightful as it sounds.
Next up was the pisco which didn't go down quite so well with me but there are few straight spirits which do, particularly those with a concentration of more than 45%! However, Jorge explained that Peruvians like to mix it with ginger ale to create chilcanos, whilst tourists tend to drink it as a pisco sour cocktail which contains sugar, lime juice and egg whites to dilute the burning taste. Sensing that we still needed a little more convincing, he whipped out the pisco cream liqueur. Similar to baileys, this creamy concoction was lush and I imagine would be even better with coffee, hot chocolate or drizzled over ice cream. I was converted!
Despite the session being free, Jorge and El Catador certainly got their money's worth out of us in the end as we piled our backpacks with small bottles of our favourite drinks as well as the pecan chocolates that accompany them so well. Extremely content, and full of sand and brandy, we then headed back to Ica and boarded our bus to our penultimate Peruvian destination, Cusco.
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