Travel journal
What an amazing day in Huacachina
17 March 2016
So where is Huacachina? Pronounced whack-a-cheena!
Well it's a bit further inland near the city of Ica.
Ica is the location of South America's largest area of sand dunes and in the middle of it, is Huacacina Oasis. This is where we are heading.
Just a very small lagoon with a sprinkling of hotels, hostels, bars and restaurants around it as it is soley a holiday destination and that's all holiday makers need.
Or is it?
This place has something else too but more about that in a bit.
We were taken to our hotel - Hotel Casi - which had a lovely pool (we will definitely make use of that later for sure), and found a restaurant for a quick bite.
Then it was time to meet Maurice and the rest of the bus who had signed up for this afternoon's little adventure.
On the bus is a nice Dutch couple, Per & Natasha, whom are only a couple of years younger than us and are very nice. Whenever we stop anywhere we tend to gravitate towards each other, probably because of our ages as everyone else is only about 20!
So as our names are called out to take our seats, we are pleased to see we have been paired in the same vehicle as them. But as 4 of the largest people in the group, we were squashed together into seat far too small for the 4 of us but Eduardo explained this was so we were wedged in and didn't fall out!
So what exactly are we going to do??
Dune Buggying and sandboarding! Yeahy!!!!
This will be a first for both of us and we can't think of anywhere else we would rather try it. We are very excited.
Eduardo is our driver. All the drivers apparently do this for the fun of it and don't get paid. Eduardo must be pushing 60 and it is great to see that he does this because he loves it, and the fact that he has reached that age must mean he is pretty safe and pretty sensible right?
Wrong - safe maybe but sensible definitely not. He was a maniac!
He would zoom up near vertical dunes which brought screams from the two girls at the front, before turning around and coming back down again. It seemed the more the two girls screamed, the more he loved it and it just egged him on more. It was brilliant fun.
Up on top it was incredibly beautiful. We know we keep saying how beautiful everywhere is but it truly is and we have to stop and take it all in quite often. we just want to soak it all up and just try and fix these images in our memories.
The sun was getting lower and it created huge contours and made the sand glow. It felt like a very special place at that moment in time.
Then Eduardo zoomed to the top of the biggest dune yet and stopped dead right on the very ridge - just at that moment we thought we were going over.
Then he gets the sandboards out. We have never done anything like this before and it was pretty nerve wracking standing at the top looking down. Then Eduardo gives us all a candle and tells us to wax our boards. Yikes - he wants us to go fast too!
Then the best is yet to come - he tells us we have to lie down on the boards - we are going down face first. Oh this just keeps getting better!
So not wanting to wimp out, off we go, over the edge and down. Wheeeeeee!
Oh this was such good fun can we do it again? Eduardo had pointed out a series of dunes to board down saying he would meet us at the bottom and pick us up.
Then he took us back up to the top and we did it all over again. It was possible to control your speed as you went down by digging your toes into the sand. But it was much more fun if you didn't.
Here are a couple of video clips of our fun :-)
Going dizzy
Dune Buggy ride and sandboarding
Now well and truly full of sand, Eduardo took us right to the top of the dunes in time to see the last of the sun going down. It was so beautiful. He seemed to take great pleasure in taking all the posy shots for everyone (we are saving those for when we get to Bolivia).
Just when we thought today could not get any better (remember we started out with the Ballestas Islands), Maurice announced that as it was St Patrick's Day today he had organised a party. Yeahy - just what we needed.
After a good shower to get rid of all that sand, we met Maurice and everyone else who still had the energy, to walk over to a barbecue. True to form, Maurice had the jugs of pisco sour - other beverages were also available - lined up for us along with green masks for the ladies and green balloon hats for everyone. Maurice is like a duracell bunny. He doesn't stop and he is always hyper. But he looks after us well and we are glad to have him as our guide.
We finally hit the hay around 11pm and we zonked out in no time. It had been such a great day could we possibly top it tomorrow? By now we are beginning to expect that we can :-).
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