| Nov 16, 2005 - Huacachina, Peru
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 | | show all 67 | | Pool at my hostel | | Pool with dunes | | Dunes behind the hostel | | |
| We drove for hours through the desert along the peruvian coast, and got to the city of Ica. From here, I immediately took a taxi to the oasis town of Huacachina.
So, let me describe Huacachina. When I say oasis, it is exactly what you picture. In the middle of the desert, surrounded by massive sand dunes and dozens of miles from the coast, lies a small lake that has no business on earth being there. But there it is, and so with is comes the miscroscopically tiny resort town of Huacachina: just a cluster of hostels and a few restaurants catering to tourists. And of course, outfitters for the one and only past time of the area, sandboarding.
This heaven of a place was exactly what I needed exactly when I needed it. Really, ever since I left Cuenca I had been travelling hard and never once slept in the same place twice. Then I got here, to the middle of nowhere, with absolutely nothing to do all day but sit by the pool, enjoy the scenery, and perhaps walk around the oasis. The first night was just eating and relaxing. The entire next day I slept, read, sat by the pool, and at 4pm went out on the sandboarding tour.
Sandboarding, while similar to snowboarding and so coming fairly easy to me, is also very different. You really cannot go too fast no matter how much waz you put on the bottom of the board, at least compared to bombing down the snow, and turns are totally useless. They took us out in two buggys on this crazy and fun ride through the desert to our fist beginner sand dune. After a few runs it was off to a moderately bigger dune, after another exhilirating ride. Finally, we got to the third and final and most steep dune, which were able to do only once. I waxed up the board well, velcroed it on, and just pointed it straight down till I hit the bottom. No, its not snowboarind, but man it sure is a great time. We then had a bit more of a ride, and stopped to watch a spectacular desert sunset of which I took way too many photos.
Got back the hostel, and saw Felipe (from the top of the mountain in Santa Cruz and my bus to Lima) standing in the doorway of the hostel. We went in together and he showed me that Jacqui, of equal top-of-the-mountain fame, was staying there as well. We had a great reunion during the night of eating and relaxing once again.
The next day, well, you guessed it. Slept in after a somewhat late night. Enjoyed breakfast and some reading and napping by the pool once again. At one point Jacqui and I had to go into Ica to buy our bus tickets for the night, after which we decided we had done too much and needed more relaxation. Finally by the evening we thought we should do something with our day, so we walked up the huge sand dune behind our hostel, and once again enjoyed a phenomenal sunset with the others on the top of the dune. For kicks, we ran down the dune at top speed, and enjoyed the fact that if we jumped while running we could actually soar about 15-20 feet. The same hill that took us 30 minutes to climb took less than 3 minutes to get back down.
Then the bad news came. About 3 hours before my 9:30pm 17 hour trip, I started to feel seriously ill. All the bad stuff: chilly sweats, full body pains, headache, and exciting times in the bathroom. From past travels I know my stomache, and after trying to sleep in a sweat for a while, decided to start the strong antibiotics right before the bus ride. I wasn't about to wait it out in the middle of the night on the longest bus ride of my trip thus far. Luckily, while waiting for the bus I ran into two girls who I had met briefly at the hostel in Huanchaco up by Trujillo, so at least I had some company. We finally started boarding about 10:15, and after catching a local guy trying to unzip the backpack that was on my back and rob me, I got to my seat and tried to sleep. |
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