Imagine you are standing at a lake. It´s a big lake. It is winter. The lake is frozen. It is a big icy flat. It has been snowing and it has been windy. There are small hills and waves and bumps of snow. Here comes a big giants. He grabs the icy layer by his hands and shakes it, like you would shake a carpet to straighten it out. But the giant leaves the carpet in waves, big ones, small ones. Now throw some grey, flat ducked down bushes and some old and wrinkled trees, barely green here and there onto the scenery. And then, it is not snow, but it is sand. Not the kind of sand you would now from the beach or from the sandwatches. It is grey, mixed with rubbles and stones. That´s the desert on the way from Lima to Pisco, right and left of the Panamericana, the street, that goes all the way from Canada to Fireland.
It doesn´t look like that everywhere. Sometimes the desert is interrupted by, what is called "a town", but it is barely more than a bunch of huts or small cabines built up not out of history round a central marketplace like in Europe, but more in quarters, lined up one street parallel to the other like in the US. In some places there are thorny bushes stacked up around a small hut, giving shelter for cattle, the whole place not bigger than a tenniscourt. But around 30 of these in one areal.
So cute: Along the street, in the desert, some people have put up fence. I don´t know what for. Along the fence, there is a hose with small holes in it, and water is flowing through. At the hole, small flowers are growing. They seem lost surrounded by sand, sand, sand. It is the first time for me in the desert, I am overwhelmed. And this is just the beginning...
The night before takeoff we had a goodbye-party with John and Humberto, Ricardo, Lia and Augusto, all the friends from the German-Club. We went to a bar, talked, had a beer and a lot of fun. It´s an honor, that these new friends showed up to say goodbye and wish us good luck. They had to leave and John, Nadège and I didn´t want to finish the evening yet. So we went to the next bar, and the next bar and the next bar. At four o´clock in the morning, all our energy was gone. We took John with us to the hotel, made a bed for him on the floor and fell asleep right away.
At ten on the next morning, Augusto showed up again. He has been travelling a lot all around the world. Europe, Asia and, because he is a Peruvian, in Peru. He is fluent in Spanish, English, German (he has been living in Vienna for a year) and French. At the moment he is learning hebrew. He gave us tipps, which are good places in Peru to visit and showed us pictures of his journeys. Yes!!!
John and Augusto took us to the busstation of the soyez buses. These are the long-distance buses, and, believe it or not, they are very comfortable. In excellent shape, TV and comfortable seats, they are safe and for a three hour ride only 25 soles per person, about 10,- US Dollars, about 6,- Euros. And then the ride out of town, heavy, heavy traffic, everybody tries to find his way, it is a chaos. But it works. In the suburbs: poverty. At one very crowded place, the bus has a stop to let people off and get new passengers about every 15 minutes, it smelled like shit. Through the suburbs, through small villages, through the desert. We reached Pisco after about three and a half hour, went out, took a taxi, and arrived at Pisco Sin Fronteras.
It was the exact moment, where everybody took off to the wakachina, a place about an hour away from here to sanddune-surfing and partying. We instantly met about 20 people, South Africans, Australians, New-Zealanders, French, Danish, Polish and so on. 60 volunteers are here at the moment. The welcome was very hearty although the people where in a rush. Harold, the "manager" of Pisco Sin Fronteras showed us a place on the roof, where we could put up our tent to sleep, but the ladder is steep and we thought about finding something else. Carolina, his sister gave us the key to the second house of PSF and here we are, two beds are now ours. We decided not to join the partycrew, but to stay and get used to what will be
our home for the next few weeks. "The weekends are always quiet, very different from week" said Wendy, the Australian who gave us an introduction to the house and the way it works around here. "Take the chance and relax as long as you can!" That is what we are doing today, besides blogging! ;)
J.V.