We finally arrived in the city of Ica in the west of Peru at around 9am. Once we got our bags off of the bus, we were hassled by a bunch of taxi drivers who then preceded to follow us around the station while Dylan got money out. We then went to the Cruz del Sur bus office to book our final Peruvian bus to Lima the following day.
Now the main reason for our one day stop in Huacachina is to see the massive 200ft sand dunes. After a 10 minute taxi from Ica we were in Huachina. A quaint little town with no more than 40 houses based around an oasis in the middle of the desert. We had to wait to check-in to the hostel, Desert Nights, so walked around, had lunch and booked our sand boarding and dune buggy trip for 4pm with Banana's. The trip cost 60 soles (£12) but included a BBQ in the evening.
After a bit of waiting around we got to Banana's for 4pm, jumped in a home-made buggy and were ready to go. These things sound like monster trucks and are basically just an engine with a roll cage. We spent about 20 mins bombing it about on the dunes before reached the top of one. This is where we'd start to sand board. Sand boarding is basically snow boarding but on sand, except the boards are made out of MDF here so you have no control of speed and direction! The pics:
And my personal favourite (incl. Dylan):
We spent a good 2 hours going down dunes. I managed to stand up a few times and got some decent GoPro footage. On the last dune, which was the biggest, I decided to sit on it. Bad idea. I gained loads of speed but all of a sudden there were rough parts in my path and couldn't dodge them. I came off hard, spinning like Taz in the sand. I can't believe I didn't break anything. The GoPro caught the whole thing perfectly so that will be funny to look back on.
On the way back into town we stopped for a dusk-view over Huacachina and carried on. Our driver was racing round the small roads and cut some taxi driver up (our driver was well in the wrong). Our driver then got out and started punching this young taxi driver. We couldn't believe it! Anyway, the evening was decent with lots of BBQ'd chicken and avocado and a bit of beer. Tomorrow we're off to Lima, our last stop before Colombia.
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