Its lovely and warm in Ica, we're finally out of the cold nights and now in a desert like environement. We grab a joer and head to Huachachina, a small settlement in an oasis some five minutes away. The town is so tiny, I'd say it was 200metres long if you were to measure it, sitting on the side of a little oasis with towering sand dunes surrounding every side. We stayed at Banana Bungalows, a nice little place with wooden huts as dorms and a small pool beside the tiki-bar to cool off at in the afternoon heat. The draw to Huachachina is the dune buggy tours and having a go sand boarding down the dunes, after that its rancho relaxo all the way. We arrived early in the afternoon so we decided to go that evening, dune buggying and sand boarding, I should say. The buggy's are monsters of equipment, like some sort of truck/tractor vehicle that a mad scientist dreamed up. Its a long sloping chassis with an exposed engine at the front, with the driver and then passengers situated behind. The engine must be of a tractor as the torque needed to get through the sand must be serious altogether given the speeds we were later going at. The body is made of piped steel so the seats are all open to the elements. It also looks very light and with the power that is has underneath and the growl it makes when pushed, this all added to the fantastic experience when we once hit the sand. The driver was ancient, it looked like he had far too many years behind him to be in charge of this machine, but maybe years in the sun had added to the crazy way in which he drove. Pure and utter lunatic he was and we were loving it. The dunes, were spectacular, stretching as far as the eye could see once you got to the top and each one differed from one to the next as the shifting winds changed their shape daily. The lunactic driver spared none of the power the vehicle had on offer for a lazy afternoon of driving as he put the excelorator throught the panel of the floor, launching the vehicle up and over the top of the dunes. We later stopped at the top of a tall dune where we got off to attempt some sand boarding. I was a bit dubious about this as I'm normally crap on any type of board and it was seven years since I last attempted some sand boarding in Lancelin, a national park full of sand dunes north of Perth in Australia. My worries whether I'd be any good were soon answered, I was still s***e, falling all over the place and I didnt I have enough patience to continue to try and improve, instead opting for a lying down technique, going head first down the dunes. This particular dune had three stop offs before you would get to the bottom, but when I was fired off, maybe its due to my size and weight or the fact that I kept my legs behind me in the air, I flew past the first stop off point, over the second and the third, eventually stopping as the gradient flattened out towards the bottom. It was super exhilarating as I wiped the sand from my mouth but I was one of the lucky ones. Another chap in my group came flying down fast after me. He went over the first stop off but he hit the sand with a great thump the far side, smashing his head off the board, bursting his lip and breaking his nose. The poor guy, I felt awful sorry for him as he tried to stop the blood flowing from his mouth. Some of these things just arent safe but you have to take a chance once in a while if you really want to enjoy yourself.

The following day was a chill out day beside the pool. I was way behind on my blog and I still am as I currently write this on my way to Pucon in Chile. However later that night, a group of us from the hostel decided to walk up the huge dune across the road from the hostel to watch the sun set. The view from the top is amazing with views as far as the eye could see. The best thing for me to be honest was getting back down to the hostel. It took 20mins to get up to the top but only 20 seconds to get back down again as I ran down the steep decline all the way, jumping off the dune to catch some air. A super experience!

One of the other activities to do from Huachachina was to head towards the coast to a town called Paracas where we could get a boat to a nearby island called the Ballestes Islands or as some people call it, the poor mans Galapagos. It was about an hour and a half away and when we arrived the weather was not promising, soon finding out that we couldnt take the boat across as the weather was too choppy. I was a bit bummed as I wanted to go but they offered an alternative to us, to take the bus we were already in, along the coast into the Parque Nacional de Reserva, a desert like landscape that borders the sea where we can see wildlife and some geometric formations. It was the best and only option we had and after paying for it, we went. We stopped at the top of huge cliffs where pelicans, gulls and other sea birds hung out to play. Behind us, etched into the hill was the "candelabra", a formation carved out of the hill, very similar to the Nazca lines but nothing to look at even up close. Back on the bus, we drove closer to the beach to see where a tsunami a number of years ago had descimated the coastline and the fishing industry there. The poverty is very clear there and the area struggled to come back to its former self after taking such a hammering from the earths forces. We stayed for lunch though regardless at this small fishing village supposedly famous for its ceviche, but then again, everywhere in Peru will say its famous for its ceviche. Ceviche is a typical dish that can be found on the coast of any of Latin America's countries coastlines. What ceviche is, is raw fish or seafood thats marinated with lots of lime juice, onions and some chilli. The acidic lime juice when marinating basically leaves the fish raw but cooks it at the same time so that its not like sushi. Its light, tasty and for a person that doesn't regularly eat fish, never mind sushi, thats a good thing!

That morning we had brought all our bags with us, so we werent going back to Huachachina, instead we'd head north to arrive in Peru's capital Lima later that evening. Chi from Canada, one of Karly's friends who she had met a few weeks earlier had joined us that day, so the three of us were dropped on the side of the Panamerican highway, just outside of Ica, where we could get a cheap local bus to Lima. It was cheap, but it was long and we stood for a good portion of it, stopping off in ever little tumble weed of a town before we made it into Lima some four and a half hours later. Back to big cities, traffic, pollution but good food!