We took a local bus to take us from Nazca to the town of Ica, the journey through the desert was very picturesque and we even saw some of the Nazca lines. When we arrived at Ica bus station we took a taxi to Huacachina (pro. wacacheena).

Huacachina is in the Atacama Desert and it only has a population of 115 people. It is a desert oasis surrounded by huge sand dunes. 5 minutes into the taxi ride from Ica we saw the first view of these sand dunes. It is hard to describe the enormity of the sand dunes but they are all you can see for miles and suddenly the oasis came into view, a beautiful lagoon of water surrounded by palm trees and restaurants. Legend says that the lagoon was created when a beautiful native princess was apprehended at her bath by a young hunter. She fled, leaving the pool of water she had been bathing in to become the lagoon. The folds of her mantle, streaming behind her as she ran, became the surrounding sand dunes. And the woman herself is rumoured to still live in the oasis as a mermaid. The sand dunes surrounding the oasis are used for the world sandboarding championships every year and sandboarding is very popluar. We decided not to take part in case of injury!

We checked into Casa Del Arena, very cheap and it even had a pool with a bar! As soon as we had dumped our backpacks we went down to the pool to enjoy the hot weather. The pool was busy with backpackers and locals and one of the staff came to invite us to an evening barbeque. Jimmy could only speak Spanish so he asked another backpacker to translate, a very helpful american lady explained that it was an all you can eat evening with all you can drink pisco sours (Peruvian cocktails made of pisco, key lime, egg white, sugar and ice). We agreed to be there and went back to the room to shower.

That night we met up with the lady who introduced herself as Maritza and her boyfriend, Tim. We had a fantastic evening, consisting of drinking games, various funny hats, dancing and arguments about US gun laws! A beautiful friendship had been ignited and we were to spend the next 2 weeks with Tim and Maritza, playing Uno, relaxing by the pool, going out for "Pie" (american for pizza!) and partying almost every night.

We decided to come to Huacachina as we thought it would be very different to spend Christmas in a desert. On Christmas Eve we went to a hostel called Bananas across the road from Casa Del Arena and met lots of fellow english people who we had a great time with. We decided to have our Christmas Day meal at Bananas with Tim, Maritza and our other friends there. Christmas morning was very strange. We always have the family at our place on Christmas day and now we were sat at the bar on our own with noone around, certainly didn't feel like Christmas morning! After a walk around the oasis trying to find an internet cafe open and finding everything closed we made our way back to the hotel and had a drink with Tim and Maritza. It was strange only being able to text family on Christmas Day and we were glad when the sun started to set so we could eat our meal and look forward to Boxing Day. In Swindon we go to "Boxing Day Challenge" every boxing day. Our friends all meet up and the challenge is to try and drink 20 drinks (immature and fun!). We convinced all the english travellers in Bananas to take part and had a very fun evening, hopefully some of them will come to Swindon to take part next year!

Over the next week we enjoyed playing frisbee and watching enchanting sunsets on the sand dunes. The four of us moved into a 4 bed dorm over New Year as the room prices were increased. On New Years Eve we bought a meat and cheese platter, drunk red wine and just before midnight we went up the sand dunes and watched all the fireworks going off over the oasis to ring in the New Year. Tim even bought sparklers! There was a nightclub attached to the hotel we were staying in and we went in for about an hour, trying to dance along with the locals - all a bit too twisty and turny for our liking though!

We had a fantastic time in Huacachina, getting to know Tim and Maritza very well. We found out that Tim is ordained in the USA in the Ministry of Life and started to hatch a plan to tie the knot in the magical destination of Machu Picchu and by the time we left for Cusco plans were in full swing.....