Breakfast was surprisingly early in our hotel, it started at 6am and finished at 9am. We left it as late possible and because there were very few guests it wasn't a problem. It was a buffet breakfast with eggs cooked by the chef, so plenty to fill us up for the day.

Our 'work' for the day was to look for winery tour tomorrow. Huacachina is a very small place, a little oasis in the desert built around a small lagoon, so it was very quick to walk around.

We spoke to a few tour agencies and a guy on the street, who focused on guests at our hotel, about wine tours and dune tours. Everything seemed to be pretty similar apart from one company specialising in sand boarding. They would give proper lessons and offered a trip to sandboard down the highest dune in the world (10 minute ride down after a 3 hour hike up).

We were still a bit undecided but liked Hipolito, the guy from the street. He was away on another tour by the time we got back to the hotel so we decided to just chill out by the pool. The pool was great, it was pretty shallow and had nets set up for ball games and was perfect for just mucking around in the water.

Hipolito came looking for us at 3:30pm to see if we still wanted to go on the 4pm dune buggy and sandboarding tour - which we did. We quickly went to get changed and we were first pickup in the dune buggy which meant we got the front seats. When we picked up the rest of the group at the shop, we were surprised at how they were dressed. They had protective goggles, helmets, long pants and sturdy shoes. We, on the other hand, had sunglasses, shorts and jandals.

Our driver headed off towards the dunes and after crossing himself a couple of times, put the buggy into 4WD and headed up into the dunes. It didn't take long for the screaming to start behind us and we hadn't even got close to the proper dunes - it was just like driving on a beach. When we reached the dunes proper and drove up, down and sideways across the steep slopes the screams intensified. Maybe because they didn't have the same view as us it was more scary for them, or maybe they were just wooses.

The desert was massive and we drove for maybe 15 minutes until we were seemingly in the middle of nowhere although we still had views over the city of Ica to the east. We took the boards out next for our first ride down a dune. There was no standing at this stage though, we we had to lie flat on the board and go down head first - good fun all the same. The buggy came to pick us up at the bottom and drive us to a bigger slope for our next run, again on our fronts. Afterwards we were taken to a slope where we could try and stand, as David found out it's not quite the same as snowboarding. For one, having no shoes or boots on and being barely strapped to the board with a bit of velcro, controlling the board is a bit more difficult.

On the next and final run of the day, David did manage to get down without falling. Maria was getting the hang of positioning on the board to get more speed.

Our boards went back into the buggy and we went for another drive across the dunes before stopping to watch the sun set over the distant dunes before heading back down into Huacachina. The whole tour lasted 2 hours and for s/40 each it was pretty good value.

Back at the hotel, Maria turned out her pockets and had enough sand pouring out to build a sandcastle. The sand wasn't just in pockets though, it was in ears and up noses and generally just everywhere. We showered and headed out to find some dinner.

We ran into Andy and Carlee while we were looking for restaurants and the four of us ended up at Huaca****ingchina. David wanted to go just because of the name, the food was not so great but we did get a free drink.