Huacachina

A few days after New Years I took a bus from Cusco to Ica. The ride is about 16 hours long and I did it overnight, arriving in Ica at around 11 in the morning. Ica offers museums and wineries, but I wasn’t there for that. The city is on the edge of the dessert and 5km out of town is Huacachina, an Oasis surrounded by sand dunes, some of the biggest sand dunes in the world. Growing up in Michigan, the Sleeping Bear dunes are my reference, and though they’re great, they didn’t compare to these Peruvian mammoths.

            After getting off the bus in Ica, I shared a taxi with three Argentinians who were going to the same place. Upon arriving we discovered that we all wanted a place where we could set up our tents so we set out to do that together as well. My new friends consisted of one guy who spoke some English and was a member of the Argentinian navy, and two girls that didn’t speak English. This was good, because I hung out with them for that whole first day and only spoke English to the guy when I absolutely had to. I didn’t speak a ton, but I was able to sit in on a days worth conversation without it being weird.

            Huacachina is not a big place. The town exists because of the natural Oasis it is centered around. Roughly two blocks of restaurants, hostels, and dune buggy agencies surround the water and that is the entirety of the town. Though the water is brown in the oasis it is said to have curative properties, and on top of that it’s extremely hot in the dessert so one of the first things I did after getting there was go to the beach for a swim. I’m not sure how much it really had to do with the water, but I had a nasty cut on my finger from the bar in Cusco that closed up by the end of the day after my swim.

            I don’t remember if this has been mentioned in past posts but from time to time, being a gringo, Peruvians will want their picture taken with you. It most often happens in places that are tourist attractions for Peruvians and international tourists alike. While I was on the beach in Huacachina it happened twice. The first time I though the woman wanted me to take a picture of her and her husband, so I agreed and stood up to take the camera. Her and her husband came to either side of me and had their son snap the shot, I thought it was pretty funny especially because they didn’t make any eye contact with me or try to have a conversation. They just got their picture and moved on to the next attraction. The second time, a group of girls asked if I spoke Spanish as I was leaving the water. They at least talked to me for a few minutes before asking for a picture, making it slightly less weird.

            After the sun had gone down on the first night, I decided to grab a couple of beers and leave my campfire to head up to the top of one of the sand dunes surrounding the oasis. It was a beautiful star filled night and my ambition eventually brought up to the top of the tallest dune I could see surrounding the town. When I got there, it was the view on the other side that was the most impressive. The seemingly endless sprawling lights of Ica were to my right, with an equally endless expanse of sand to my left. I sat there quietly for a while, drinking my beer, taking in the view, and feeling the breeze. Then I yelled, whatever I felt like yelling, for as long as I felt like doing it. When I was done I sprinted down the steep, smooth dune, putting my breaks on as the sand turned into a road at the edge of town.

            The next day I signed up for a dune buggy/sand boarding tour, which is the reason most people go to Huacachina. My group ended up consisting entirely of a group of Argentinian guys that were camping at the same place as me, two Germans, and myself. I learned that the Argentinians were a group of eleven, 19-20 year old friends, all traveling together, having what looked to be the time of their lives. At the campsite they had big games of volleyball, they were giving each other buzz cuts, cooking a group dinner over the fire and just carrying on. They same thing continued out on the dunes, and I couldn’t help but think how similar things would be with my friends and I, had we been together doing the same thing. Meeting these guys reassured me how important it is that me and all my fun loving amigos back home make a point to do something like this before we get too old. You know who you are. We just need a destination and a time frame.

            The buggy ride was awesome, and the driver was not afraid to act like he was driving a dune buggy and not a minivan. We got air once or twice, all 14 of us! We stopped off several places to take pictures and ride sand boards down the giant dunes. I thought it would be worth it to throw the extra 20 soles for a snowboard, with the boots and bindings and everything. It turned out that I made the wrong decision. The speed at which the board went down these massive, and steep dunes was quite disappointing compared to the speed everyone else was getting on their free pieces of wood. I would cruise down and the Argentinians would fly. They were getting running starts and going down on their bellies; easily reaching speeds of 45-50mph. They’d hop up at the bottom of the hill, eyes watering, nose full of sand, and grins ear to ear.

Regardless of the lesson learned about snowboards belonging in the snow, I still had a great time, and was blown away by the view as we drove back to town with the sun setting over the sand. Huacachina is definitely a place to stop if you’re traveling through Peru. It was unique and worth seeing, even if there is still sand in my ears.

 Mannn, the bus food is crap.

 where I made camp