¡Hola!

Our next stop was in the tiny tourist town of Huacachina, a few sand dunes away from the city of Ica.We'd decided to visit it on the recommendation of a travel agent in Lima, we were really glad we did.It was the most improbable place I think I've ever visited: a tiny oasis lake right in the middle of the desert, encircled by a handful of colonial buildings and some palm trees - that was the extent of the town.Being in the desert climate was great: really dry and hot during the day; cool and breezy at night; a nice change from the colder, damp weather we'd been having for so long.Our hostel was cheap and had an airy colonial feel to it, plus it had a pool and a nice courtyard garden.We could have stayed there for a while.

The main reason we went to Huacachina, however, was to go sandboarding.The trip involved a crazy two-hour drive around the sand dunes in a dune buggy, stopping here and there hurl ourselves down massive slopes headfirst on a sandboard.We did try a bit of sandboarding proper, i.e. standing up on the board, but for the big slopes we stuck to lying on our bellies, which was much less suicidal.The sandboarding was great fun and some of the dunes we went down were ear-poppingly high.For some reason I would always end up travelling 10 times faster than anyone else, finishing some distance further than the rest of the group.Driving about in the dune buggy was even more crazy though, our driver taking us a break-neck speed up sub-45 degree slopes to the very brink of stalling, only to make a slippery turn at the top and throw us bouncing down into the next massive valley.At times I hung on to my seat belt for dear life, but the whole experience was brilliant fun.

Huacachina encapsulated everything I really didn't expect from Peru.

R&M

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