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Published: September 14th 2008
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The "Beast"
This is one of the smaller dune buggies, believe it or not We woke up around 7:30 to the sounds of the building shaking, car alarms going off, and dogs barking. Even in our sleep-deprived minds we knew we were in the middle of an earthquake.
'Now what am I supposed to do?' I thought to myself. 'Do I play dead, or do I make myself taller?' Somehow I remembered the “Zona Secura In Caso De Sismos” signs I'd seen all over town under columns and under doorways. We stood under our ill-constructed door frame until the shaking stopped. Thankfully the ceiling didn't collapse on us and we didn't have to dig ourselves out from under a pile of bricks. It probably wasn't more than a 2 pointer and didn't last more than five seconds. Nobody was screaming outside so we figured it wasn't that bad and we went back to bed. I lay there trying to remember my geology class. In this part of the world earthquakes are more caused by magma moving towards the surface than anything else. Witness an earthquake is now crossed off my to-do list.
The small town of Huacachina (pronounced Wackah - Cheenah) is actually a suburb of Ica (Eeka). It's mostly a tourist
spot in that it is built around a small lagoon in the middle of thousand foot sand dunes. As we headed into town we noticed a large number of dune buggies and sand boards. “I know what I'm doing later.” I said with a mischievous smile.
However, I didn't think it would be seven days until I got the chance. The reason: some nasty intestinal infection that decided to make a home in my belly. Ammi was fine, but I had a fever one minute and the next I had three pairs of clothes on and was still shivering. Plus, I was getting dehydrated fast no matter how much liquid I drank. Ammi made the executive decision: “Time to go to the hospital.” So I ended up spending the night in a clinic with I.V.s stuck in me (or as the Romans would say 4s) that pumped me full of hydrating liquids and antibiotics.
After we returned to our hotel the owner asked: “You ate the fish in Pisco, didn't you?” Apparently she sees this kind of thing all the time. So we chilled out for a few days while I took the rest of my antibiotics and
was just about to get better when Ammi started getting sick. Luckily we had some extra antibiotics and she didn't have to go to the hospital. We knew we were going to get sick at some point on our trip. It's inevitable. We got sick in Europe. We're just hoping that it's a one time thing and now it's out of the way.
The last day in Huacachina we booked a dune buggy / sand boarding tour. We climbed into the humongous dune-buggy that could hold 10 people. It roared to life with all the grace of a St. Bernard choking on a bone. After a ten minute ride of teeth rattling fun, we arrived at the top of a huge dune. The driver pulled out a number of sand boards, that are essentially huge skateboards with Velcro bindings, and handed one to each of us. Our tour operator said that it's better to lay face first on the board than stand up. I wasn't terribly worried as I'm pretty good at snowboarding, but Ammi reminded me that sand boarding is one of the few extreme sports that isn't covered by our travel insurance. It covers bungy jumping and
white water rafting but not sand boarding. Go figure. So I decided to lay down...for now. I have to say they go pretty fast, I was afraid it would be too slow to be fun. Even Ammi had fun trying it. At the end of the day, the daredevil inside had got the best of me and I strapped my feet it. Halfway down the hill I realized why no one else successfully stood up: It's very easy to go straight, but not to carve. So after I reached about 50mph I realized that I would have to navigate the rest of the hill successfully or suffer another trip to the hospital. Luckily I made it down like a pro, but fell when I started to slow down, and no, sand is not softer than snow.
***TRAVELERS' TIPS***
-If you rent a rowboat ask if the price is per person before you get in the boat. They will tell you a price but they mean per person.
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Sydney
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I want to see a video of Ammi on the sandboard. Going face first n your belly doesn't look like any fun at all. Didn't you get sand in your teeth, up your nose, etc?