Day 31 - Huacachina

Huacachina is AWESOME. 4 hours on a bus out of the bustle of lima, passing villages that smell of dog meat and sand cliffs as higher than you can see, we turn up in this beautiful sunny oasis literally on the edge of the peruvian desert. Who even knew that Peru had a desert?



Right in the middle of 3 huge, towering dunes of sand is this tiny lagoon surrounded by restaurants and hostals. Owned predominantly by Israelis, every hostal has a pool and smoking weed is so common that the restaurants offer it to you as a pre-appetiser (clearly to get you to buy more food). Apparently its totally legal, but I'm sure the police just don't care enough because they are too busy sand-boarding down the dunes.



We spent the first day exploring the surrounding area. With no reception between the dunes, I bombed it up one to make a phonecall and the view is UNREAL. All you can see for miles is sand, mostly sculpted into an impressive landscape of mountains and valleys.



For a tenner we were offered the chance to go dune-buggying and sand-boarding, so we paid up (despite seeing a girl stretchered off a dune buggy the day before). Sam was literally crapping herself with fear as our buggy tore off into the desert at 60mph. Its like the most extreme rollercoaster you can go on. The buggy actually bombs it at top speed over the top of the dunes and down the near vertical slopes (that you wouldn't even walk down). Sam cried, I begged to go faster, and eventually her dirty looks made me shut up.




(check out the buggy on the slope above)

After a hair-raising 20 minute ride, we stopped on a small slope to practise some sand-boarding. apparently its pretty similar to snow-boarding, and I was AWFUL at it, but towards the end, on the bigger slopes, I got the knack. Kept falling over, but could hold my own for almost 20 seconds before tumbling down the dune slope.





At the end of the trip, we got to lie flat down on a board and go down the biggest dune of all. I didn't want to do it, through fear, but after seeing a 60-year-old man do it fine, I decided I couldn't turn it down. Pretty scary, but I think I weigh too much for it to be amazing. The lighter girls flew. Literally.

Sam didn't board, so the next day we all decided to hire boards and have a go alone with the buggy. Sam was amazing - she sat on her board and glided down quicker than any of us. Suzi couldn't be bothered to walk up the slope, so she just sat there for an hour, but I was getting good. waxed my board up to the max, stood up for the whole dune all the way down, went a bit too fast and guess what? nearly broke my spine by hitting a mini-dune at 40mph. cracked my head and back against the sand, which at that speed feels pretty much like concrete, and after seeing stars for about 10 minutes decided to call it a day. 5 days later, the back is still bruised and sore. But I live to board another day.