Sandy bums!
Trip Start
Nov 04, 2010
1
62
82
Trip End
Aug 10, 2011
Where I stayed
Huacachina, Peru
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Huacachina is a fun place for a pit stop on the way south to the colonial town of Arequipa - it used to be a playground for Peru's elite but has de-evolved to catering purely for the low end party loving tourist crowd..........Perfect for us! There are really only 2 reasons to come to Huacachina - for an adrenalin fuelled dune buggy ride and to surf down the gigantic sand dunes, be it face down on your belly, on your bum, or standing up snowboard style.
We stayed for a couple of nights at the fabulous El Huacachinero Hotel which is probably the best place in town. During the day we mostly lazed around the pool, our slumber interrupted at precisely noon by the squawking brilliant blue resident parrots. During our hunt for lunch, we came across 'le casa de bamboo', a cafe run by an english woman with the best offerings being her chocolate brownies - Jamie Oliver's recipe she confessed and wonderfully decadent served with ice cream and marshmallows.
Late afternoons were cool enough for a walk around the palm fringed lagoon where all the jewellery flogging hippies in Peru seem to have congregated. Our hotel owner is a bit of a petrolhead and his buggies were strapped with the biggest engines in the whole town. So, when the clock struck 4pm, we were summoned by the deafening revs of his dunebuggy. A 15 minute hair raising ride, correction, flight, over the sand dunes later we arrived at the first in a series of 3 sand dunes to board down. These were relatively small, about 10 metres in height and pretty easy sliding. Warmed up, we were then introduced to dunes about 40 - 60m in height, at a gradient of perhaps 80 degrees....so honestly speaking, we were slightly uneasy. Just as Anjli had readied herself to slide down headfirst, a girl that went down before her, crashed into another boarder at the bottom of the dune and let out an almighty scream - she'd dislocated her shoulder and some other bones elsewhere we found out later. This 'little' incident had everyone re-evaluating their route down for a good few minutes before some decided to walk down. Not knowing when we'd board down such gargantuan dunes again, we steadied ourselves belly down on the boards, held on to the straps bloody tight, and set off, all the while digging our feet into the sand to get some sort of control on the way down.
After 2 hours and another hair raising flight over the sand dunes we arrived back at the hotel with sand in places we never thought possible. A quick shower sorted out this little problem and we capped off the day with a couple of Pisco sours and some more fantastic Peruvian ceviche!
