Day 3, Ocucaje Desert, Peru

Diane: After perhaps 3 or 4 minutes looking for shark's teeth this morning, I am ready to call it a day. I have no interest in this obsession. Calliope's enthusiasm level has dropped even lower than mine; she has decided not to bother leaving the truck at all, until we are back in Ica. TM, on the opposite end of the spectrum, is lobbying hard to spend one or two more days here. I know Tom shares TM's desire, but he sees that Calliope would be miserable and he's not sure about me. Since Tom was in charge of the grocery shopping, we have enough food and water for a couple more days. We also have a flexible schedule; in fact we have no schedule for the next ten days.

I decide to spend the rest of my time walking the desert without looking for anything. I really do love the desert, so this sounds like a good time to me. At one of our stops, Calliope changes her mind about leaving the truck. She picks a soft, sandy spot and proceeds to sieve through the sand, finding at least a dozen tiny shark's teeth. Her day is improving.

But then TM makes the biggest find of the expedition this morning - a large megalodon tooth in excellent shape.






He spends no time gloating, because he wants to get back to the land and search every square inch of it. As with Tom's find from yesterday, Roberto feels that the tooth was meant for TM. I am very thankful for this find and this interpretation. Now we can return to Ica today flying high on the grand vibes of finding a large shark's tooth.

At our next few stops, I wander around noticing all the lumps, bumps, and up-and-coming skeletons. There must be so much out here that does not meet the eye, mostly because it is buried. Check out some of these uncovered bones.






They are so big. They are so well preserved. And they aren't surrounded by fences or hidden behind glass panes in a museum. We can sit next to them and play cards or have a family squabble. Not that we're doing that. We are looking for megalodon teeth in the general vicinity of whales. Because megalodon ate whales.

While in Arequipa, Tom and I stopped in the Peruvian/North-American Cultural Center. They had an open stack library, which is rare in this part of the world, so we spent some time in the periodicals section. There was an English-language archaeological magazine that caught Tom's eye. He found an article in which the author retells his account of accompanying some Peruvian huaqueros on a successful nighttime raid. It was eye-opening for us, even though the article was 2 or 3 years old. Since Roberto used to be a huaquero, he showed us how you determine the presence of a tomb and whether it holds bones or ceramic pieces. The laws of Peru are very interesting when it comes to archaeological finds. People have been looting tombs for centuries and selling their stolen loot to private collectors. Such activities are now illegal. But it is not illegal to own such articles. So the rich collectors have protected their investments, while the huaqueros (tomb robbers) continue their secret and lucrative digging.

The laws of Peru are also interesting when it comes to paleontological finds. Roberto showed us how to read the land to determine the most likely spots for fossils. He gave us some tips concerning spotting shark's teeth, once you were in an area with good potential.






You may be wondering what we are planning to do with the shark's teeth we have found. Isn't it illegal to take them out of Peru or at least unethical to remove them from the desert? The answer appears to be "No" and "No". As far as the legality, it is against the law to dig for shark's teeth. However, if they are lying on the ground in an area that is not a nature reserve, they are fair game. The Ocucaje desert is not a nature reserve, so we are safe on legal grounds. Moral grounds, as usual, are a bit trickier. Roberto says that after a shark's tooth has been exposed to the air for three months or more, they disintegrate entirely. So, if you just leave a shark's tooth in the desert, it will turn into so much dust in very short order. If you take it with you, you then have the ability to protect it from the harsh rays of the sun and the accompanying changes in humidity. You can also show them to others, sharing the wonder of ancient shark's teeth. We found many, many partially disintegrated shark's teeth that bore testimony to Roberto's view.

It was a windy day as are most days here. Tom took a picture of me looking like an inflatable pool accessory with the whipping wind filling out my clothes.






I took a picture of Tom decked out in his bandana face-covering to protect him from that same whipping wind.

On our way back to town, Roberto stopped by some very recent human remains. The clothing and nails were still discernable.














It was a reminder of just how harsh the desert is. If you run out of water or your car breaks down or your buddies abandon you, it is not "Hasta la vista, baby. It's more like "Adios amigo". I haven't mentioned the extra precautions Roberto has taken with his truck to make it desert-ready and desert-rugged. Suffice it to say that I wouldn't have gone so far into the desert without supreme confidence in both our guide and his vehicle.

Our last stop in the desert was a whale with its brains showing. I had a hard time believing that the translucent yellow rocks were once whale brains. Why didn't they just decompose into the orangeish-mustard dirt like the rest of the fleshy material? Why hadn't someone carted it off to a research lab to check the DNA? The cynic in me was and still is wary.

After some time deciding which shark's teeth to restore, we are luxuriating back in civilization's hold. Our tummy's are digesting a cooked meal and we have bathed away some of the grit and dust from the crevices in our skin. Tomorrow we will fill them with sand, for we will be sand boarding the enormous dunes surrounding our hostal in the oasis of Lago Huacachina.