A short 4 hour early morning bus ride and then a taxi took us to the tiny oasis town of Huacachina. We had viewed the desert the whole way down the coast of Peru from a bus window and this was the place to have fun in it. The town is surrounded by impressively tall sand dunes and is very touristy with hundreds of international and locals visiting daily. The oasis isn't even natural anymore but for the good of the local economy has to be regularly topped up.

After a 10 minute walk round the oasis we hid from the sun and tried to stay cool until our dune-buggying tour left. Then about 10 people strapped into the back of the large buggy and our driver took off into the dunes. We were driven around the dunes like a rollercoaster not knowing what was over the next ridge. Sometimes there was just a small drop and other times the whole group screamed as the ground dropped beneath us. We eventually stopped at the top of a small dune and were given sand boards, which are basically wooden snowboards with Velcro straps. I (Simon) hate snowboarding but it was actually easier on the sand because of the extra grip compared to snow. The other way to use the boards is just to lie on them and this is what the group mainly did going off bigger and bigger dunes - apart from Katy. Katy was too scared and only reluctantly went down the first one, about 15 metres in height, and after that she walked down the rest. The last one we did must have been at least a 200 metre steep ride to the bottom, which was pretty scary and I dug my feet into the sand behind me the whole way down to reduce my speed. We were caked in sand by the time we headed back to town (sand sticks to sun-creamed skin) but got to see a great sunset over the dunes. That evening, after a long shower, we chatted to a Dutch couple in our hostel's open air chill out area about career breaks and travel plans.

The next day we enjoyed a lie in and then had to check out of the room as we were leaving in the evening for Arequipa on a night bus. Peruvians love their night buses, or at least prefer them to day time ones, so we were being forced to take them as the only option. But as we don't like them we paid for VIP seats on the best bus going. So we hung around the hostel in the shade for most of the day and did some travel planning.

But at 3pm I left Katy and went sand skiing with an entrepreneurial new company. The skis are adapted with a new base and have to be waxed before every run to work on the sand. At first we practiced on the small dunes which we had to walk up with our ski boots on, which was really hard work in the heat. Then, after our practise, a dune buggy picked us up and took us to the big slopes with some more rollercoaster driving on route. The dunes got bigger and bigger and the last one was definitely a black run. It was a really weird feeling to be skiing in shorts and a T-shirt in the heat. Back at the hostel I had a quick shower before we left for the night bus - this time leaving plenty of time to get there.

Simon