Casa de Bamboo

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Having spent Earth Day on the rather environmentally unfriendly activity of flying back from the USA to Peru (sorry planet), our final destination before Lima and the flight home was the desert oasis of Huacachina where our friend Beth owns the cafe, Casa de Bamboo.

Huacachina is in a sand bowl surrounded by imposing dunes, perfect for sand boarding and Mad Max style sand buggy rides. It is an oasis of tranquility (apart from the occasional revving of sand buggies), 4.5 hours south of Lima and a 5 minute tuk-tuk ride from Ica.

Beth built her house (possibly with a little help) a couple of years ago and now runs the cafe with her husband Ryse (when he´s not doing jungle tours) and 15 month-old daughter Jasmine (when she's not liberating jewelery from one of the local stalls). They cater for travelers weary of the veggie-lite diet as well as those in need of bacon sarnies, marmite, HP sauce and proper coffee. She also does a wicked Pisco Sour, which we concluded after considerable research - undertaken at some personal hardship - was the best in Huacachina (possibly the best in Peru, but unfortunately our research wasn´t that extensive).

We had a fairly easy time in Huacachina, knowing that the end of the trip, and therefore lie-ins and lazy days, was nigh.

We visited the food market in Ica a few times, which is madness - dirty, noisy and smelly - but has a cool range of weird and wonderful fruits from the jungle - as well as a stinky fly-ridden fish and meat market. General - sensible - advice for the non-veggies is to arrive very early in the day.

We did some Pisco tasting at the local wineries, although we have to admit neat Pisco isn´t our favourite drink.

We also did some some sand-boarding, which was much more successful than our rather poor effort in San Pedro a few months previous. This time we had proper boards, boots and bindings, making the boards much more controllable. Another significant improvement was getting picked up by a dune buggy at the bottom and getting taken to the top of the slope again😊 The buggy ride was also great fun. A roller coaster ride with fast turns, steep ascents and descents across the dunes and out of the seat bumps. It was a great adrenaline rush.

We also met some of the 'burners without borders' volunteers, bless 'em (BWB was originally set up by some of the festival-goers of the Burning Man event, held in the Black Rock Desert each year). The volunteers are doing demolition and construction work at nearby Pisco, which was the epicentre of a huge earthquake about a year ago. They come to Huacachina for some R&R at the weekends and to get some decent food. The reconstruction effort sounds in turn both very frustrating and very rewarding. It seems unbelievable that it may take another 20 years for some parts of the city to be fully rebuilt.

So that's about where our journey ends. Just the small matter of a Bus ride to Lima and a flight back to London. Too easy...

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Photos

Cheers
Pisco tasting at the winery

Ceviche a la Casa de Bamboo
Beth cooked us the Peruvian speciality of Ceviche - shortly before the sand buggy ride. Fortunately we didn´t see it again.

Sand buggy
We had a roller coaster ride in a sand buggy across the dunes. It also took us to the top of the sand boarding dunes.

Beth and Ryse and the pizza oven
Also featuring Beth´s signature Pisco Sour

Comments

[Deb n Des]

sooooo good!
What a fantastic trip!! -even managed to sneak in some cheeky hardcore boarding. Respect. see you soon?! xx