What do an oasis, a penguin and something 2,400 years old have in common

They're all found in Peru!
I'm out of superlatives to describe this country. On Friday I went on an excursion with the International Studies Abroad (ISA) to three places:
1) Huacachina-This is an oasis in the middle of the coastal desert in south-western Peru. An argous six hour bus ride arrived us to the magnificant speciman of a resort. Two hours after unloading the bus and getting checked in to the hotel, we embarked on our first two part excursion. The first part was to go tearing around the vast desert in HUGE incredible powerful dune-buggies. These bad boys hold 11 people plus the driver (whom I believe was insane, or just really liked his job). I have no idea how many horse-power they are, but suffice to say it's "sufficiente!" He took our group on a wild ride up and down gigantic sand dunes at I would guess 40-55 mph for about 20 minutes. We finally crested our last sand dune and then it was time for part two: sand-surfing! This is exactly what it would seem, although the boards used are about half the size of regular snowboards, so think of it being for midgets (sorry to all midgets offended by this description.)
I was the second to surf down the dune, and did quite well until the end, when I leaned back and proceded take a sand bath. Also, although the sand is soft and fine to the touch, it doesn't feel good to eat it...or get it in every oraface of your body.
So after being at the bottom of the dune, and waiting for the rest of the group to fall down it, our driver picked us up, and whisked us away to two more dunes...repeat process above only harder and more times! I loved every second of it, and hated the entire next day.

2)Paracas-Left the hotel, still full of sand, and took a two hour bus ride to the coast, where we got on a twin 200hp. mercury engine boat and sped off into the Pacific Ocean for a nature preserve. Along the way we spotted bottle-nosed dolphins, sea lions, and yes...penguins! We also saw one of the world's largest islands where they harvest guano (yes that means bird poo) for fertilizer. Mmmm...the smell of money...smells aweful!
Then it was a six hour bus ride after lunch to Nazca. This was aweful for many reasons. I was incredibly stiff from yesterday, still had sand in most of my possessions, and was a bit motion sick from the previous bus ride and boat ride. Didn't puke, but I should've.
Upon arriving in Nazca, we unloaded and ckd. in for the night. I showered again to remove more sand and my soreness, both with marginal sucess.

3) Nazca-For those of you that are not familiar with the Nazca lines, they are multiple sets of geometrically perfect lines and drawings in the middle of the Peruvian desert. One of the amazing things is that carbon testing dates them to be from around 300BC-600/700AD. Another interesting fact is that they were not discovered until the 1900s. Why? Because they are too vast to view from the ground! So why would these ancient people build these lines and animal drawings? No one is for sure, but one of the most interesting drawings may give a clue-it's of an astronaut! No joke-look up the pic on the internet-I only took a video of it and it's a half hour long, so it would never fit in a file, but yeah...aliens.
Now this may make many of you laugh, but there is some popular opinion that the sight was the location of an alien visit, and the Nazca people constructed the lines and drawings to serve as an homage to their "gods" and also to give them an arial map of how and where to land upon returning.
I will say no more of theories because regardless of why they are there, the Nazca lines are one of the most beautiful sights I have ever flown over, and one of Earth's true mistories.

To say the least I had a good weekend-and I am going to the jungle on Thursday! Oh yeah