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Published: June 25th 2009
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Tim Version:
* Got some serious sandboarding done and man it's awesome!!
* Had some good conversations with some locals and enjoyed the "end of the line"'ness of the place.
The sandboarding down a big-ass sand dune version with nothing but other dunes to board down in view:
Huacachina has a reputation as a party place and dependng on where you stay it certainly lives up to that reputation. That however wasn't at all why I was here - I was here for the dunes and to hit them up with sandboard in hand to try and find the steepest fastest ride I could!
Rocking up in Ica in the bus its a pretty large but kind of personality less town (in my opinion), however it is the entry point for Huacachina. Befriending a Spanish couple also heading to Huacachina, we flagged a taxi outside the terminal and headed straight for the dunes. Upon arriving in Huacachina I think we were all amazed by how small the place really is! It is literally just a few blocks of buildings with maybe 10 restaurants, 10 hotels/hostels, a few other businesses for dune buggy tours and other little
shops for food and thats it! It all concentrates around the little lagoon in the middle, making it a little tropical oasis surrounded by towering dunes. They even, thankfully, block the view of Ica from within the town helping create the feeling of being in a real isolated little tropical oasis.
It was still just lunch time or just after when I rocked up so I had plenty of time to check out the whole town, get some good local grub for lunch, and go for a wander up the dunes. I think the first climb I picked the most difficult route from behind my hostel straight up but reaching the top and being greeted with the crazy beautiful sand-forever view was totally worthwhile! I didn't have the board with me yet but it gave me an awesome vantage point to scope out some good dunes for my future rides. The thing with sandboarding is the walking up the hills... having the energy to ride more than a dozen times is hard, and at this point of traveling with my fitness not all that great in my opinion I knew it'd probably be worse than my mind was telling
me how it was going to be heh. I sat around on the peak just breathing in the view in the afternoon sun, watching kids and adults alike scrabbling and struggling to get up the hill, watching the nuts dune buggies flying around the dunes trying to decide if I wanted the buggy ride or not...
I decided no on the buggy ride, but mainly because I felt like time in the buggy was "stealing" my time sandboarding! When I was too itching to wait any longer and just watch I went back to the hostel, changed, hired a board and headed out! Incredible... love it so much! My first few rides sucked as I just went for the larger steeper sand dune faces, forgeting that I needed that crumbling avalanching sand to really get a decent ride, but after changing theories on what made a good face to ride the real fun started. Especially in one little sink hole type thing I found that had this wicked steep tall face that went maybe 1/3 of the way down, then it leveled out for a metre or two before it once again dropped to a steep downward decline giving
you some seious speed! It also had a nice flat part at the bottom to shave your speed off before you go face planting into the other side of the sink hole and cop a mouth full of sand. No camera shots I'm afraid as sand and impacts and cameras do not mix, but I must have ridden that zone for a good 2 hours, almost my whole hire period, until I was just too knackered to climb back out anymore. Heh I lost my hat on one of the steepest parts one of the first few rides which was a bit of a mission to get back as that face of sand just wasn't meant to be climbed, but I came out of the whole thing with a massive beaming smile having got my board riding fix to keep me going for a bit longer. The sunsets over the dunes are also incredible, with the colour reflection of the sand seemingly colouring the clouds to almost un-natural deep bright oranges.
I decided that night that I wasn't going to hang around a second day in Huacachina as I'd originally planned as I was already hell happy and on
a high and a second day was more likely just to make me start missing surfing. It was also more likely to end up in me meeting more people in the hostel and ending up in a drunken mess as was the end for most people there most nights by the looks of it. Instead I opted to head out to eat and had some of the best Thai food I've eaten cooked by a British lady in a white restuarant up the road that I wish I could remember the name of so I could recommend it. Turned out I was the only one in there so I got to have an awesome conversation with her and mucked around with her dog for a bit while discovering more about the real Peru through her and her experiences here as living here versus traveling. I tried to get a decent night's sleep as my previous night wasn't nearly enough with the early bus getup time though that failed dismally as my hostel had a club in it located right next to my room, not the smartest pick on my behalf but not matter as it was still enough for me
to head out the next day at a leisurely time, moving on towards my next destination of Nazca - time to check out these giant drawings in the sand/rock and to take my new found sandboarding skill and test it on the highest dune on the world (apparently)!
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