Thankfully after a touch and go 24 hours and a good Chinese meal in Lima I was feeling much better. Eimear, Kirsty and I left Lima and took a four and a half hour bus (a very short jaunt these days) wit Cruz Del Sur to a city called Ica where we then took a taxi 8km out of Ica to a small oasis town called Huacachina. Huacachina is a strange place, little restaurants, hostels, hotels, souvenir shops and big colourful dune buggies loop around a small, natural oasis in the middle of the Peruvian desert. The town was solely built for tourism, the main activity being sandboarding and dune buggying in the surrounding sand dunes (whoever came up with this idea was a money making genius)! We were really using Huacachina as a Stop off to break up the journey to Cusco. Of course I wasn't opposed to trialling out this random activity. What's the point in travel insurance if you aren't going to test it out!?
We checked into our hostel wild olive which was a really pretty little place with a kitchen, big living room and restaurant out the back that backed into the boardwalk and oasis. It also had sand boards that we could take for free up to the dunes! That afternoon I decided to test out if I could possibly be any more clumsy on a sandboard than I was on a surfboard (burst lip....still healing). A Dutch guy Patrick we had met in the hostel and I headed off....sandboards under arm. We stupidly ignored the sand dunes where most people were sliding down on their bums and found the highest sand dune we could to walk up. When I say walk I mean clamber..it was exhausting! After about twenty minutes we got to the top and quickly realised that it looked an awful lot steeper from the top. We walked a little further and found a slightly more forgiving slope. Patrick was straight on the board and managed to get down the dune with his feet strapped in with only a couple of tumbles. I'm not going to lie I whimper out on the standing option (a little audience had gathered at this stage too) and I sat on the board for a few hundreds metres before face planting and getting a mouthful (and bra full of sand). After a couple of hours of testing out the boards did back to the hostel to decant all the sand we had collected in our clothes, hair and mouths.
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| Huacachina town |
Later that night the three of us and Patrick went in search of food. The restaurants are generally a bit more expensive in Huacachina as it's so touristy but we managed to find a set menu Del dia (our fave) for 15 soles ($5) for a fresh chicha mora juice (blackcurrant juice), starter of salad and main of chicken with lentils (lentil joy) and rice. We sat outside and had great entertainment watching a little kitten chase a cockroach...my nights out are too wild these days.
The next day feeling fresh, Kirsty and I decided we needed to get some exercise in. So off we went for a run.....in the smallest little town...In the desert...'crazy gringas'. Our run actually consisted of looping around the small boardwalk a few times, before doing tricep dips on a bench outside and sit ups in the living room of the hostel. I genuinely have no shame anymore. Guess it's inevitable after four months of sharing bedrooms and bathrooms with multiple strangers every day.
Later that day we arranged to do a sand buggy tour and sand boarding. The most popular time to do it is four in the evening as it's a bit cooler then and also means you catch the sunset on the way back. We managed to get a really deal for $8 each (I had expected to pay about double that). Luckily there were five of us and I actually really enjoy trying to haggle in Spanish so we got it cheap. The sand buggying was really good fun with the buggy flying over the sand dunes....like a roller coaster in the desert. We had the chance to board down four different dunes...each one getting steeper and higher each time. Our guide Nico explained it was safer and easier to board down on your tummy. Patrick the Dutch guy still boarded down standing up and fair play to him he did it like a pro. I however stuck to boarding down the (slightly) safer way and considering the speed and steepness of the dunes this was satisfactory adrenaline induction (petrifying)! We were slightly delayed however when our sand buggy ironically got stuck in the sand, leading to Nico using a sandboard as a shovel and then the seven of us (Kirsty, Eimear, me, Patrick, a girl Emma we met in our hostel and a Colombian couple) pushing the sand buggy over the sand dune to free it up. Once it was free we sand boarded down the highest dune leaving me with sand burns and a sore throat from screaming followed by a sunset over the desert. After we got back to the hostel we had enough time to de-sand ourselves and get to Ica to catch our overnight bus to Cusco!
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| All hands on board to free the buggy |
The quick, sandy, adrenaline inducing Stop off in Huacachina was definitely worth it!
Next Stop: Cusco, Peru
Stayed: Wild olive guesthouse, $10 for dorm including really good breakfast (omelettes are life)
Food/drink: typical menu Of the day for $5 of salad, main of chicken, lentils, rice and a juice (chicha mora). Cusqueña negra wheat Peruvian beer...probably the first beer I've had away that isn't a light larger...I didn't like it!
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