Mermaids and Magic: Day Two of Huacachina

This is the second post in a series about my trip to Huacachina with my friends a couple weekends ago. Our second day in Huacachina, we prepared to leave, but first we had to visit the lake and the statue of the mermaid on the banks. As I was walking there, a Peruvian guy started telling me the legend of the mermaid. The story goes that she seduces men and leads them to the lake where they drown. However, the guy decided to embellish the tale by telling me that the mermaid was blond and blue eyed...similar to me of course. The moment we reached the statue, we quickly realized that the mermaid was dark with brown hair, however my friends immediately named me the "cirenita" (little mermaid) and then I willingly took a lot of embarrassing photos posing in front of the statue. Needless to say, my Peruvian friends never get tired of calling me la cirenita. The day only got stranger. Our sand buggy driver from the previous day recommended that we check out a little town outside the city known for the brujas (witches.) It sounded intriguing so off we went and found ourselves in the midst of yet another bizarre Peruvian legend about a witch that supposedly lived in this area and a statue and park had been constructed in her honor. The nearby bar was advertising a drink called "orgasm of the witch" but other than that it was a bit of a letdown. However, when sitting in the park pondering this bizarre place, we saw the cutest little group of piglets come running through the park, with their little curly tails held high. Nearby someone was selling kitchen pots. Soon a couple little boys came by to bother us and try to get us to pay them to bring us to a supposedly bewitched tree with seven heads. Interestingly this strange palm tree, which did in fact have seven trunks and was extremely strange looking was located right next to a beautiful church in the middle of this tiny town. It all sounds like a crazy dream or someone rewriting Alice in Wonderland to take place in Peru. However, it made me realize that it only takes a legend or a strange natural phenomena to make a place significant and different cultures have a huge variety of reasons why they visit these "sacred" or "bewitched" places. Soon we were heading back to Lima, leaving a trail of sand behind us and marveling, but mostly laughing about how unreal the whole weekend was. (Unfortunately I have no photos of this bizarre day because my camera was broken due to the sand stuck in it, so ironically I could actually be making all of this up. But I will try to post one of my friends photos.)