...a holiday from Hands On.

So the week I was building classrooms in Ica I visited the little oasis town of Huacachina. While most of the rest of our team used their Sunday off to marvel at the phenomena of the Nazca Lines, my work buddy Dennis and I decided to marvel at our own laziness and nipped off to a sand dune for a bit of well earned r and r! Huacachina is a very small town situated around a murky lake in the desert about 10 minutes drive away from Ica. It`s very touristy with daily dune buggy rides and sand boarding trips (like snow boarding but with considerably more sand up yer wotsits!) but with blissful sunshine and a refreshingly cool swimming pool at our hotel it was a welcome break from the grind and grime of work.

After breakfast we set off to climb a sand dune before the sun got too fierce. It was bloody steep, high and harder to climb than I had expected. Clearly we didn`t set off early enough either because, after a short time at the top taking in the view, we began to descend by which time the sand was so scorching hot we could only run a few steps before throwing ourselves onto our backsides and sticking our blistering feet in the air as far away from the sand as possible! I felt like one of those desert lizards only considerably less graceful! Back at the hotel I immediately changed into my swimmers and jumped into the pool. I could hear the tsssssss as my feet hit the cool water. It was bliss!

Our hotel had a number of pet parrots and macaws stalking around. I`m not a fan of wild animals being kept as pets but at least they were not caged up and were free to roam around. But they were certainly domesticated and accustomed to harrassing tourists for tit bits... actually in my case it was more like theft. One of the parrots jumped on my plate and started helping himself to my chips! Little blighter!
After lunch Dennis and I nipped into town for a little explore. I had heard a rumour from a couple of other volunteers that there was an english girl who had a restaurant with her peruvian husband and that they served toast and marmite! Having been deprived of my beloved marmite for 10 months I made it my number one priority to scope out her establishment and make a notable dent on her supply! It was not long before I found it and ordered myself 2 rounds of hot buttered toast and marmite and a nice cup of proper english tea with real milk... sounds like such a simple thing doesn`t it but I can tell you that for the ten minutes it took me to consume this little slice of home, I was in heaven!!! I was also quite amused by how she had translated marmite on toast into spanish on the menu. It read, "pan tostada con salsa ingles" ...toast with english sauce!! haha! So after my fix of english sauce I struck up a conversation with the cornish girl who owned the place (she had a tell tale kernow flag flying next to the peruvian one on the roof!). She was very lovely but ultimately I can`t like her because she wouldn`t sell me a jar to take away with me! How dare she!

Next stop was a bar/restaurant that was home to another unfortunate jungle animal being kept as a pet. His name is Marvin and he is a very famous little monkey round these parts. As soon as you`re acquainted with the little man you can see why he`s earned his infamy! He`s quite a character... a cheeky monkey if you will! I had heard he was a thief but completely forgot as I approached him, iced coffee in hand. He ran up my leg, up my side, across my shoulder, down my arm and snatched the straw out my drink... he immediately started lapping it up like a cat at a saucer of cream! Not wanting him to steal the rest (I thought it probably wasn`t very good for him) I extended my arm and held the glass as far away as him as possible. Of course this was utterly futile. He is after all a monkey. He`s designed for climbing branches so my puny limb was really no match for him. Once he`d cleaned up the straw he zipped like lightening up my arm and greedily scooped himself out a handful of my icy drink. For a short time he sat on me lapping away at this tasty scoop he`d scored himself. He was enjoying it so much that it was a minute or two before he even realised that it was icy icy cold... as soon as he did he jumped flung his arm in the air and flicked the remaining coffee off his hand, showering me with sticky goo and wearing a look of "ooh that`s bloody freezing" on his tiny face! Then as soon as he`d relieved his little hand of the cold sensation he immediately remembered how good it tasted and stole himself a fresh handful! ...for the next few minutes Marvin and his goldfish memory switched every other second from "ooh that`s bloody freezing" to "oh but it`s so tasty!" to "ooh that`s bloody freezing" until the coffee was all but gone. Realising it was utterly futile, I had long since stopped trying to keep him away from the drink and sat there in uncontrollable fits of giggles whilst the little monkey went about his monkey business! So Marvin and I became firm friends. He sat on my shoulders with his tail coiled around my neck, he cuddled me, he fiddled with my hair and clothes... in fact he perhaps got a little too friendly... he started to get grumpy if anyone else came too near... then Marvin took things a bit far and came over all inappropriate... fortunately he hopped off me and dealt with himself but promptly hopped back on as soon as it was over... eeeeeeeeeeeew! I could handle being covered in iced coffee... but monkey business was not so welcome! Yuck! I took this as my cue to let Marvin down gently (it´s not you it´s me, I´m just not ready to commit to an inter species relationship right now... etc etc!!) and go back and make use of my hotel shower! As I left he squealed and cried and I couldn´t help but feel bad for the poor little man... how unfortunate that I´m the closest thing to a girl monkey he´s ever likely to get! He should be swinging about in the jungle with a harem of hot girl monkeys not tied to tree in a pub garden, stealing coffee and booze and relieving himself on unsuspecting human girls!

So after watching the desert sunset it was back home to the volunteer house in Ica. It had been a hot, relaxing and eventful day. I probably wouldn´t have included Huacachina on my itinerary ordinarily but it was a very welcome break... and certainly worth it just for the tea and marmite!