We are camped in a desert. The end.
Anyone still reading this is rewarded with the actual blog about the desert that we are camped in. Did you think I was serious?
The desert is a desert-ish desert. It has lots of sand dunes and isn't 100% flat, it's 75% flat. The other 25% is vegetation, mountains, and dunes. I actually like the general flatness, but I hate the spots that have been irrigated. I don't like that emerald green plants are forced to grow in the desert by desperate farmers(I almost wrote "faeries" there). The biggest irrigation ditches are lined with concrete and carry lots of muddy water in them. You can drive over the next hill and all that is under it is a desert and an irrigation ditch parallel to the road. And, of course, the road that is running parallel to the irrigation ditch.
Sometimes the dunes have plants growing on top of them. When this happens, all the dunes in that area have plants on top of them. Then you pass into flat, flat, flat, flat, flat, flat, flat, flat, flat, flat, flat, flat, flat, flat, flat, flat, flat, flat, flat desert with absolutely no dunes in the picture at all. Then you reach a spot called "dune zone". There was an official sign on the road once that said "zona de dunas". And sometime in all of these different areas, you can see ocean waves breaking on the nearby shore. It looks like there is no water to be found for miles, but in reality, it is right there. It's just undrinkable to any living thing, plant or animal. It doesn't matter to the dead animals that are busy being pecked out of their bones, though.
Now we are safely parked off the dirt road that leads off the highway to the little fishing town. The road continues past the town off to who knows where. We are camped on a circular bit of land that juts off the road. In easy reach is a perfect beach, a tall sand dune, and a cave that you really wouldn't want to be stuck in at high tide. It's very rocky and all the trash piles at an invisible line tell you that the tide obviously makes it up there sometimes and the rough sand beneath your feet shows how hard it crashes into the cave walls when it does. The trash line isn't very far in to the cave so you can tell that once you reach a section where a wall almost blocks all passage, the water hardly ever reaches. Here, there is no garbage and barely enough light to let you see where you lower your foot. Actually, it's a bit spooky.
Now we are covered in sand that has been blown all over us. Once we get to Lima we will need to rid ourselves and the van of sand.
This entry was posted on Sunday, December 20th, 2009 at 5:48 pmand is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Hey Kevin, nice to read your words. Your maps have been great, but I was curious to get your perspective on things. You have an interesting writing style. Very "to-the-point".
I managed to post this entry, using stolen unsecured WiFi, but it crapped out on me before I had a chance to corrrect the date and the author. Kevin´s writing style in no way resembles Sara´s!!