Sandboarding in Huacachina

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Huacachina is a tiny oasis in the middle of the desert, east of the coast of Peru. It consists of two streets several blocks long, and a small lagoon. On all sides are towering sand dunes, which is pretty surreal. To get there, we bused to the nearby city of Ica and took a taxi from there to Huacachina.

The main attraction is sandboarding! This is similar to snowboarding, but on sand... sand is softer to fall on, but it's harder to keep control, and the boards are quite thick and heavy, so precision boarding is not a realistic goal. Many people just go down on their stomachs, which is undeniably fun and way faster. On your feet, you are supposed to go down diagonally, reducing the risk of too bad a fall (while we were there, someone fell and broke their neck). Despite the danger (or because of it?) we had a fantastic time. ALSO, to get to the good sandboarding dunes, you need to take a dune buggy ride, which is possibly the most dangerous thing we have done so far, and also possibly the most fun. The dune buggies are just metal frames with seats and a huge engine, and the drivers give wild rides, complete with very high speeds and almost vertical descents of tall dunes. It is almost exactly like a rollercoaster - SO thrilling!

There is a lot of partying going on here. Our hostel seems to be the place to come for food, drinks, and a good time. Every night at the hostel (every night!) there is a cheap all-you-can-eat barbeque with great food and included mixed drinks (for two hours, so you have to drink fast!) which attracts young people from all the other hostels, so it was easy to meet a lot of people.

Our last night in Huacachina, we camped in the dunes. This was the simplest camping imagineable; we simply walked up the sand dune directly behind our hostel, and laid out sleeping bags on the sand in a hollow on the other side of the dune. This was not as easy as it sounds, however, since climbing up the massive sand dune was much harder than one would expect by the looks of it (perspectives are very skewed in this landscape). It took us about 30 minutes of plodding through the sand to make it to the top! We went with three other Canadians that we had met earlier, and we all had a blast. The dunes are not completely dark at night, due to the moon and the light from nearby Huacachina and Ica, so we wandered around near our camping spot, lying in the sand and looking at the landscape.

In the morning, our site was not so picturesque, as it is evidently a popular camping spot, and there is sadly a fair amount of garbage lying around. But aside from this one small spot, nothing mars the landscape of sand dunes stretching to the horizon. It is stunning.

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Photos

Our hostel
The pool of our hostel was pretty exciting. This is the view from our window. Directly behind the hostel is another dune.

A flawless run!
It's way more thrilling than it looks.

Dune buggies
And Blair

Sand dune sunset
At the end of the day, the buggy drivers stop so that everyone can watch the sunset.

Blair climbing
An action shot

Laura on dune
The city of Ica in the distance.

Landscape
Blair and other Canadians (Nick, Josh and Julia) near our campsite (it's the depression to the left).

View of Huacachina
From atop a dune

Lagoon
Most visitors are Peruvian families, come for a Sunday outing.

Sandboard rentals
You can just rent boards and climb up the nearest dune. Is it worth the exertion of climbing huge hills of sand, though?

Comments

[theresa]

cool!
More memories coming back...! My mom and I came through Huacacina first, and then came to Nazca (you're doing our trip backwards!). We didn't do the sand boarding, but we did fly over teh nazca lines (my first flight in a cessna!!) and it was pretty incredible. One of my best travel memories. It's such a mysterious place! :)