Huacachina

The two main attractions of the desert oasis town of Huacachina, Peru are:
1. Visit to a pisco distillery /winery.
2. Dune buggy/sand boarding sunset trip

Nick was feeling under the weather and believed he had visited enough wineries in Argentina and South Africa, so he wanted to stay at the hotel while I ventured out on my own. I didn't fancy that idea so after some persuading (nagging), I convinced him to come on the 11am bodega tour.

At the first winery he was expected to drink various Peruvian wines and a shot of straight pisco. He seemed ok with that, so we moved onto the second distillery. After a quick tour of the pisco making process we were offered a variety of pisco concoctions- pisco with honey, pisco with lime, pisco with milk etc. Add to this a glass of red with lunch and I reckoned we had all but cured Nick's stomach problems.

Convincing him to go on the sand dune excursion later that afternoon was a little more difficult. Excuses included:
A. Sand boarding is rubbish. It has nothing on snowboarding.
B. What's the point if someone else is driving?
C. I'm not well, you know.
D. I'm too old for this.
I think it was only to put a stop to my creative persuasions (i.e. more nagging) that he finally opted in.

The whole thing was brilliant. First, we had a fight with the lady selling us the tickets. She accused us of lying about the price quoted by an agent who we met earlier. She was huffing and muttering but in the end we got the ride for the bargain price of 70 soles for the both of us. (Possibly another reason Nick agreed to come). Then we jumped into the dune buggy and a little granny and grandpa got into the seats behind us, with what must have been their granddaughter. I thought 'great, now we going to get the geriatric version and it won't be the thrill experience we were promised'. How wrong I was. The driver was absolutely mental. I don't think he saw granny and gramps get on board because the second he turned on the ignition, we was going full throttle down Huacachina high street. Nick's seatbelt was playing up and wouldn't secure but the driver didn't care, he just put foot and went swerving around the corners on 2 wheels. Then we hit the sand of the desert and we went speeding over the top of some enormous dunes. There was no speedometer so I'm not sure exactly how fast it was, but it felt like being on a roller coaster -without the reassurance that everything will be ok.

The dunes are so steep it seems they have a vertical drop on the other side. I was screaming my lungs out, followed by nervous laughter, but I admit it was a jol. After about 15 minutes, I turned around to check out how granny was coping behind me. She was cooped up under her scarf with her head buried into her chest. Eyes squeezed tight and fingers clinging onto the back of my seat. Utterly terrified. Why would anyone put their granny on this thing!? Did she lose a bet? Was grandchild trying to score an early inheritance? Inexcusable.

At least my buddy seemed to be coping well. We both enjoyed sliding down the dunes, head first like boogie-boarding, rather than pretending it was a snowboard. And afterwards he told me he was quite pleased he came along. Unfortunately his body rebelled so we added a 3rd cultural experience onto our Huacachina to do list.

3. Visit a Peruvian hospital
The hospital in question was Ica's 'Hospital Regional'. The queuing system was absolute chaos, which belied the serene experience of consulting with two distinguished Peruvian doctors. They wasted no time in prescribing the drugs for the job and we also discovered that national health care is certainly cheap. The visit plus all the medication came in under a fiver. Hopefully we are now both in tip top shape to tackle a serious mountain trek. Time will tell.