Huacachina: Where Laurence of Arabia would go on his holidays

We took a 5 hour bus ride from Lima to Ica (opting this time for the cheap seats as we didn´t want to spoil ourselves) and crossed the desert as the sun was turning everything a lovely shade of pink. We arrived about 7.00 and took a taxi with our new buddy Gary to Huacachina, about 10 minutes drive away. On the way, both Gary and the taxi driver William sounded unimpressed when I told them about the hostel I´d booked. This coupled with the fact that I had actually booked the wrong dates, not for the first time, was enough to persuade us to try El Huacachinero, which we duly did and were quickly installed in a triple ensuite room with towels shaped like swans and a a view of the pool - luxury!



After an unimpressive meal we went to bed and prepared for our winery tour with William the next day. He took us to two wineries where we tasted various wine and pisco, which is the local spirit, and about as nice as tequila to drink neat. Nevertheless, I left with a bottle of Pisco tucked under one arm, slightly feeling it´s effects.



Gary and I also managed to make friends with some parrots who we chatted to for a while!





That evening, we all went out of the back gate climbed up the huge sand dune behind our hostel and after a 40 minute climb to the top, we watched the sun go down across the desert, which was pretty much the most spectacular thing I´ve seen!





After admiring the desert from afar, we decided to get up-close and personal with it the next day and went on a dune-buggy and sandboarding tour. I think we sent Beth down first on all the dunes because she was by far the bravest in our group of nine! Both Rich and Beth picked up some kind of injury (although Beth´s might have been from jumping off the bunk bed on Day 1) but I was unharmed for some reason. One woman came right off and sprained her wrist!