Huacachina

We made it to Huacachina unexpectedly early, after being able to catch a 1hr mini bus as soon as we got back from our early morning trip to the Ballestas Islands. The manager at the hostel we were staying at in Paracas said she could organise us a private minibus to take us for the same price as the big public bus and this turned out to be a great deal. We cruised to Huacachina in a luxurious comfy people carrier with the driver giving us an tour style explanation of the local area!

We got to the desert oasis town of Huacachina by lunch time and where blown away by how unbelievably amazing it is. It´s literally a small town around a blue lagoon completely surrounded by enormous sand dunes. Definitely one of the most impressive places we´ve seen on our whole trip so far. We checked in to our plush hotel complete with swimming pool for just $10 each a night and went to explore the lagoon. The town is predominately for tourists so it isn´t exactly an authentic Peruvian experience but this can´t take away from just how cool the place is!

In the afternoon we signed up for a dune buggy ride over the surrounding dunes which included the opportunity to try sandboarding down some of the slopes. The ride through the dunes was incredible as the scenery was like nothing we´d ever seen before, and the driver was taking us up and over the dunes like a rollercoaster.

After we´d calmed down from the exitement of the buggy ride it was time to have a go at some sand boarding. It´s essentially the same as snowboarding but much trickier albeit with a softer crash landing. We saw a few people fail spectacularly so decided it would be far safer and easier to just lay face down on the boards and hurl ourselves down headfirst.

The first few slopes weren´t too steep but by the end we were looking down at a fairly steep slope! The reason we went in the afternoon was so that we could see the sunset over the dunes but sadly by the time we´d finished boarding and rushed up the nearest dune the sun had set. The sky did still look beautiful though and made a peaceful end to a very busy day! Words can not describe just how sandy we were when we got back though, it seemed we´d taken a significant amount of desert back to town with us. Our shoes, pockets and hair was all full of sand, and it seems we´ll still be feeling sandy for a good few days!

The following day we decided to make use of the hotel´s pool area and have a relaxing day of doing nothing. As usual though, this didn´t last long! We saw some people climbing to the top of the dune surrounding the lagoon and reckoned it was definitely worth a try to get a good photo of the whole oasis. It was a tough climb but worth it for the views across the desert on one side and down into the oasis on the other. After taking a few too many photos there was only one way to go back down....run! This new sport of ¨sand running¨ turned out to be as good. if not better than, the sandboarding! After excerting ourselves we did finally spend a few hours relaxing by the pool and topping up our tans.

We´d been a bit dissapointed to miss the sunset on the dunes the night before and so after a brief discussion decided it was only right to try and see it again tonight by going sand boarding again! This time we were in a much smaller dune buggy with only 2 other people (we´d been in a group of 9 the night before), which meant we could fit lots more slopes in. Dani didn´t fancy getting super sandy again like yesterday so decided to only come for the buggy ride and only spectate the boarding. I thought I should at least try and do some real standing up sandboarding this time.

It was incredibly difficult staying upright and by the 100th time of falling over it was time to revert to the tried and tested ¨lay down¨technique! It was fun trying some proper sandboarding though, and I reckon if you get the hang of it then it would be much better than laying down. The very last slope that we went down was unbelievably long and steep, about 10 times higher than what we´d attempted yesterday. I dug my feet into the sand as much as I could to slow myself down but it seemed to make little difference as I went hurtling down at what felt like 100mph! Unfortunately, tackling this last mega slope meant I was too late for the sunset AGAIN! Luckily Dani got to see it from the buggy though and take a few pictures.

Huacachina has probably been our favourite place on the trip so far (matched only maybe by Mindo in Ecuador). We were sad to leave this morning but excited about our trip to Nasca to see the famous ¨Nasca Lines¨.