Scary Things When One is Wee

We went to the beach this past weekend. It's about a 1.5-2 hour drive from Arequipa, through absolutely desolate mountains and hills. Complete desert, not a sign of life except for irrigation projects and soft-drink sellers on the roadside. It's a whole lot of switchbacks, too, since in that 1.5 hours you go from 2350 m above sea level to, um, sea level.

The kids were great on the drive down. In fact, they both slept. We pulled into the town of Mollendo at about 1:00 in the afternoon and checked into a simple hotel. Our room, with four single beds, was on a tiled and flowery courtyard. We found a local restaurant where we ate corvina (a type of sea bass) for lunch, and then headed down to the beach for some fun in the sand.

The beach at Mollendo is not a swimming beach, thanks to the pounding, relentless surf and wicked undertow. Instead, it makes a perfectly acceptable spot for playing soccer, building sandcastles, and dipping one's toes. The Peruvian coast appears to be perpetually misty - Aaron tells me this is caused by the Humboldt Current, which comes from Antarctica. Even a block or two inland from the beach, it was blazingly hot, but it was refreshing right on shore.

Joffre had a blast, and got soaked by a couple of waves that came further inland than normal. Alec, on the other hand, barely held in there. He was terrified of the waves in the distance, which is logical, but he was also completely freaked out by the sand. The instant his toes touched it, he curled his legs up under his body and started whining. When he looked around and saw sand in every direction, he started to cry and tried to climb up my body onto my head. I got him relatively calm, but had to hold him the whole time we were at the beach and comfort him, as he was perpetually on the edge of a cry.

We headed back to our hotel to shower and rest a bit before dinner, and just to keep things interesting, Joffre stuck his fingers in the oscillating fan. Now, earlier, he'd been turning it on, then turning it off and sticking in his fingers to stop the blades once turned off, and we'd gotten after him and tried to explain how badly he could hurt himself. And he'd stopped earlier, so we figured we were in the clear. But then I was in the bathroom, and Aaron was changing Alec's diaper, and all of a sudden there was a terrible thudding noise and a blood-curdling scream, and I ran out of the bathroom and Joffre was screaming and dancing around in pain. In my panicky brain, I thought I saw blood spatters on the fan before I realized it was just rust. Nothing was broken or severed; he just bruised three fingers and opened one. Fortunately I'd had the presence of mind to bring a little first aid kit, so we got him cleaned up and bandaged, and gave him some kiddie Tylenol and an ice-cold water bottle to hold against the bruises.

Once Joffre was over the trauma, we went out to the town square, which as luck would have it was full of entertainment for children: climbing gyms, carousels, screened-in trampolines full of beach balls, and electric cars for children to ride around in. Each station charged about 1 sol for five or ten minutes of entertainment, so for the low low price of about $1.50 CDN we got a whole lot of Joffre fun before dinner.

We went to a restaurant that specialized in grilled meat and got the "complete platter", which consisted of chicken, beef heart, and tripe skewers, pork chops and steak - and was far more meat than we could eat - as well as potatoes and salad. For $10 CDN. We stuffed ourselves and then retired to the hotel, where we got the kids to sleep and then sat in the courtyard drinking a cool beer, smelling the night-blooming jasmine, and listening to the fretful wailing of the neighbours' three year old and baby. I'm pretty sure they were hating us, with our peaceful, sleeping angels. However, it is unlikely that their children woke them up at 5:30 the next morning . . .

Sunday morning Aaron and the kids let me sleep in until 7:20. They had already been up for quite some time, and Aaron discovered that along with sand, Alec is apparently terrified of goldfish - at least, of the grotesque, bulbous ones in the hotel fishtank. After a breakfast of rolls with butter and jam, coffee, and orange juice, we headed down to the beach. This time, we were instantly approached by touts wanting us to rent their beach umbrellas, which completely lined the shore. After a bit of discussion, we accepted an umbrella and two beach chairs for 10 soles, and a kiddie pool for 4 soles, which a man filled with sea water for Joffre's splashing enjoyment. Alec and I snuggled up in a beach chair and bought every bit of food wandering past - fry bread with syrup, cookies with dulce de leche, boiled eggs with hot sauce - while Aaron and Joffre went for a long explore up the beach. After Joffre was thoroughly drenched and the kiddie pool was full of sand, we headed back to the hotel and packed out. Another delicious dinner of corvina, and then we got picked up by the driver and came back to Arequipa. Alas, although Joffre was asleep before we had even gotten out of Mollendo, Alec cried and screamed for most of the drive home.

All in all, the beach was fun, but I am not sure we need to repeat it any time soon. After all, we have beaches in Vancouver!