South for the Winter: Ica, Huacachina, and Birthday celebrations!

Wow, I am reallllly behind on the blog, but determined to catch up!

We were pretty dead when we finally arrived in Ica. Like Trujillo, Ica is really just a dirty city but a few kilometers away there is the tiny tourist town of Huacachina. The first day we were so tired we just crashed in a cheap hotel for the night and passed out. The next morning we grabbed a cab and headed over to Huacachina.

Huacachina is kind of a strange place. Ica is squarely in the middle of the desert, but Huacachina is built around a little desert oasis. The town is tiny though. The whole thing could probably fit on a big city block. Hostels and restaurants surround the oasis and otherwise there is just sand dunes as far as the eye can see. Unfortunately, there is nothing but tourism so everything was kind of expensive by our standards.

The first afternoon we decided to book a sand buggy/sand boarding tour because that is kind of the main attraction in Huacachina. We didn´t have the highest expectations for the tour, but it turned out to be incredible. The tour agency did a great job of placing similar people in the buggies so families and kids were in separate buggies and we were paired mostly with the other 20-somethings. We didnt realize it at first, but this meant that our driver could really let loose over the dunes. We dont have many pictures from this because we were holding on for dear life. To give you an idea, it was like being on a roller coaster that was controlled by a 25 year-old adrenaline junkie that was trying to give us a good thrill. Keegan and I managed to grab front row seats which made it even better. There were defintely a few times we thought we were goners, but the driver knew the dunes really well and kept us safe.

So much sand

In every direction

The dune buggy

it was also really windy

The first sandboarding hill was enormous, they sent us down on our stomachs so we didnt die

I think riding on your stomach is actually more fun. Falling on sand is not nice.

Keegan getting ready to ride

Keegan was way better than me sadly

Probably not a textbook position

I never looked this cool because I always came down covered in sand

The sandboarding was really awesome. I´ve sandboarded in the past, but never with a tour agency. There is one really big difference on a tour. When you are by yourself, you have to hike back up the dune each time, when you are with a tour, they drive you back to the top. As it turns out, I prefer the tour method much more.

We left the tour totally wiped out of adrenaline and fully covered in sand from crashing on the sandboards. That night we got milkshakes to celebrate that the next day was my birthday!

For my birthday we just laid low by the oasis and drank coctails. We hiked up the dunes behind town for the sunset and had really amazing views. (One thing they don´t tell you is that for some unknown reason, bees bury themselves in the sand so it is a really bad idea to walk barefoot. We didn´t hear about this, so I pretty much immediately got stung on the bottom of the foot. I have not had good luck with insects!!) That night we jumped on a bus bound for Cusco.