Dune buggy, disco taxi, sand board and pure pisco

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I can see why Cruz del Sur is the recommended busline by many guidebooks - very efficient and most announcements bilingual but it didn't seem any more safe or comfortable than Movil or the other one starting with E which I can't remember.

We arrived in Ica to meet William (956408699 tigretours_15@hotmail) who assured us that the 4 of us and our luggage would fit in his station wagon with his wife and 4 kids. It was surprisingly true and very nice to meet his cute kids who practiced their English with us on the way to Belle Sands where the staff were nice and the dogs friendly.

William picked us up the next morning in a very jovial mood and shared with us the reason for his good cheer - apparently he got lucky thanks to the bottle of champagne Wayne gave him last night he explained as "sexo, sexo, sexo" was appropriately (or perhaps inappropriately who knows anymore) blaring from the speakers. We headed out to Huacachina the oasis in the dunes and after wandering around the lagoon (its about the size of a football field) and watching some loco gringos walk up the massive dune closest only to sadly fail at their attempts to board down we were hot and tired before even getting on the buggy.

Once we raced out of the oasis into the dunes all was forgotten in order to focus on holding on and trying not to believe the peak looming in front of us would lead to us plummeting to a sandy demise. It was great fun and more like a roller coaster ride than a tour. We stopped a few times for photos of the extensive dunes (60km), Ica city and Huacachino. We also stopped to sand board down progressively higher and steeper dunes "Mas grande?" Except one time for Nic, we all chose to dive head first (or be pushed by the driver) down the slope rather than try to snowboard-style as the foot straps are just loose velcro.

We cooled off with a swim and then finished the day with a visit to Helena's chocolate factory (yumm!) and a tour of a winery complete with tastings of wines and pure pisco and everything in between (woohoo!) before heading back to the bus station whilst we all (including the driver William) sang "I come from a land down under" loudly out the disco taxi windows.

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