Many people sidestep Ica and head straight to Huacachina to sandboard and Nazca for the unexplained desert lines. Some come to Ica to volunteer to help restore the city after the devastation of the 2007 earthquake. I however made Ica my base and set off on day trips while contributing to the local economy. The town square was pleasant with winding streets surrounding it and a cheap lunch deal can be found on every corner.

1. SANDBOARDING AT HUACACHINA

The oasis at Huaachina is stunning and I can see why people want to spend a night here. A short cab ride from Ica the magical palms spring out from the desert and for me the place had a 50s nostalgia to it, where vintage screens sirens might come to live out their own Arabian Nights.
The real pull here is the sandboarding and I would recommend opting for a board an buggy package. For a third of the price you can just have the board but the dunes are steep and the real trill comes from ragging it full force. After a few crazy wheel spins and some face first tabogganing we watched the sun set over the dunes and all was calm. Until I screamed like a baby on the drive back!

2. ISLAS BALLESTAS

Las Islas Ballestas are known locally as 'The poor man's Galapagos' but then so are most other islands off the west coast of South America so don't get too excited. The trip consists of a few hours boating where you get up close and personal with penguins, boobies, pelicans and seals. I'd seen many of these animals somewhere more secluded on my trip so it wasn't super exciting but animal lovers and bird watchers especially would live this trip. I did find myself zoning out, imagining myself a crew member on some great expedition to research the mating rituals of sea birds and I felt a smile creep onto my face. Then I zoned back in to a seagull shitting on my right shoulder. Hey ho.

3. THE NAZCA LINES

I did the Nazca lines in a day from Ica. I remember it seeming difficult but it really wasn't, an early bus gave me time to book myself a helicopter ride, see the lines, have some food and catch the bus back before nightfall.
The lines were awesome. The flight is expensive, there's no two ways round it and you can see two of the lines from a viewing tower just off the highway, but its not the same.
Waiting for my flight to fill up I watched the National Geographic video play on a loop getting more and more excited. After a bumpy 20 minutes in the air it was all over, I'd seen them. It was ticked off the bucket list and I felt a sense of accomplishment. I have no answers for you. I doubt the alien connections, it's easy to see how man could make the lines, especially men with great mathematical and scientific minds capable of such wonders as Macchu Piccu and other similar Mayan civilisations. The why is still questionable but I won't ruin it for anyone wanting to go, the spirituality of these civilisations is evident everywhere in South America and for me it shows more of mans strength than it does anything else.

SURVIVAL TIP:
Take some snacks to the airport. I was advised not to eat before the flight due to air sickness but I booked the flight at 9.30am and didn't fly till 2pm so was bloody starving!

Nothing sucks more than being sick, especially when you're travelling, especially when you're travelling alone.
I boarded a night bus for Ica, heading south from Cusco, having partied a little too hard and spent the last few days drinking lemon and honey.
I spent much of the journey liberally blowing my nose, much to the annoyance of my fellow passengers and finally passed out at around 3am. At 6.30am I felt a light tap on my shoulder and the kind attendant was telling me we had reached my stop. I knew this from the way she was urgently pointing at the door, I also knew this because her mouth was moving. I did not know what she was saying, not because she was speaking Spanish but because in the few hours I had been asleep I'd gone deaf.
Just imagine, a banging headache, a throat like sandpaper, the sun beating down on your back, a bustle of people starting their days around you inbetween uncertain stares and nothing but muffled silence.
Furthermore I was couchsurfing with a guy who wouldn't be home until 6pm, I hailed a taxi and asked for the hospital.

By this point one ear had gloriously popped and I could make out general sounds and conversations even if I was shouting back at people like a cantankerous old biddy. The 'hospital' was an emergency clinic made of concrete slabs and a dust floor. Luckily I looked so lost and in need I was helped straight away. I was able to roughly translate the words 'pain' and 'no listening' and a look down my throat proved I was blocked up with bacteria. The doctor wrote a long list of drugs on a piece of paper, told me to go across the road, buy them and return. Return for what? I wondered.

At the pharmacy I handed over my cash and received a bag filled with a few pills, vials of clear liquid and syringes. Brilliant. Back at the 'hospital' I was taken round the other side of a curtain that was used to give privacy to someone having what looked like kidney dialysis to a stained bed covered in nurses coats and handbags. As I leant over and revealed my left cheek I questioned whether this was the right thing to do. Would I get better or would I get AIDS? I risked it.

With 10 hours to kill before my couchsurfing host would open his doors to me I checked in to a mouldy hotel (with cable TV), blagged a cheap rate for half the day and cried. I cried uncontrollably for about and hour and half, before I realised Girls of the Playboy Mansion was on E! and everything didn't seem so bad.

My couchsurfing host was a dream, I slept for days at his house and he took me each day to get more injections (3 bum injections in total) and soon I was feeling better again.

SURVIVAL TIP:
Don't let it get this far! I hate going to the doctor for silly little bugs and think your body should and will fight it off naturally. However when travelling you're always moving, not meeting your normal sleep and dietary needs and the stress of having injections in a dirty clinic is never good! Plus you never know in these sorts of places, if Cheryl caught malaria, so can you! So nip it in the bud quick!