Huacachina, Peru 🇵🇪

I really feel like I have visited every corner of tiny Paracas, thankfully today we continue on our trail south to Huacachina.  Last time I visited I didn’t go into the sand dunes, partly because I had rolled my ankle and partly as I knew we would as part of this visit.

Huacachina (as you know) is an oasis near Ica, but until you climb out on the dunes you don’t really appreciate how vast the desert behind it is.  We took a 12 seater dune buggy up with possibly the craziest driver.  He took us up and down huge dunes at crazy speeds, I think Steve might think I am trying to get him killed.

We stop briefly to photograph the landscape before zooming to our sand boarding location.  There are 7 runs in total, increasing in height and all to be attempted whilst lying on the board.  Having seen this kit, there is no way you could stand up on these boards without breaking something.  First couple are easy but there are a few in the group that stop at this point.  The penultimate one was steep and as the first guy went down I knew I would have to get on with it.  The dune line was steep and then bumpy, I bruised knees and scraped my arms before deciding to roll off to stop.  This stopped my pain but put sand everywhere!  I motioned to the group to take another line which looked softer but Steve still came racing down like a bullet.

On the last and highest run it was only Steve and I that zoomed down. Steve was concerned that the driver would drive us over the edge if we didn’t go down on the boards and as we heard the revving of the engine the crazy guy did just that with the others screaming all the way.  We climbed back in and raced to see sunset before heading back to town. It felt good to be alive as we clambered out of our roll cage.