Lauriver's Travels: Huacachina

The sandy gringo playground of Huacachina, with its massive sand dunes and sunny weather, beckoned us to stay and play on the coast a while longer before heading inland to the Sacred Valley. A short four hour bus ride southeast of Pisco, it would be our last short bus ride for awhile. We actually arrived in nearby Ica, home of many bodegas(wineries), and a quick cab ride to Huacachina. By now, we had mastered the art of dealing with South American taxis. Step #1: Never ask how much the ride costs. Step #2: In your best and most confident Spanish, state your destination as if you're the mayor of the town. Step #3: Hand them exact change and only what you think is a fair price. It is helpful to get advice on this beforehand. Step #4: Say 'gracias' and walk away. The result? They will either chase you down screaming for more money or, more likely, they will pocket the money and drive away. A couple of times we've been asked for an extra sole, about $.30, but we haven't been ridiculously overcharged since. Driving into the tiny oasis of Huacachina (less than 200 people live here permanently) we were blown away by the size and beauty of the massive sand dunes which tower over the town. Our hostel, complete with swimming pool!, was located at the base of one of these sandy monsters and offered a constant reminder that we weren't in Portland anymore.

Huacachina is known for high-flying, death-defying, rollercoaster-adventure rides through the sand, and we couldn't wait to strap into a dune buggy and conquer these behemoths of the desert. Excited and a little nervous, we paid our 'sand-tax', whatever that is, and started to climb our first dune. While most roller-coasters will slowly take you to the top of the ride, pause for a moment over the edge, and then send you plummeting down the tracks, this was a completely different experience. There were no tracks, we went blazing up the dune at full speed, then over the dune at equally full speed, to end up staring down the vertical face of a massive dune, while going full speed. Throw in a couple turns at full speed, a few more dunes, and all of a sudden we were smack in the middle of a desert with miles and miles of sand dunes in all directions. As if this wasn't enough excitement, our driver pulled over at the lip of a dune, waxed up some sandboards (think smaller snowboards with velcro straps) pointed at us, and then pointed down. Once at the bottom of this dune, walk twenty feet, and there's another, and another. We had the option of going on our bellies or strapped in feet first. After Oliver fell and ate sand on the second dune, we both decided to stick strictly to our bellies. This would prove to be a good decision as the dunes kept getting bigger and bigger. Needless to say, this was one of our favorite tours so far and had us wishing we could do it again and again.

The next day was our bus to Cusco but since it didn't leave until the evening we decided to kill some time by touring some of the local wineries, know for producing some amazing piscos. A form of grape brandy, pisco is the national liquor of Peru and is best known in the tasty cocktail Pisco Sour. We would be taken on a winery tour by a friendly Quechuan, the self-proclaimed Mr. Inca. We got the full range of Peruvian wineries as we visited a major producer of wine and pisco with vats the size of rooms, as well a local bodega still producing pisco in the traditional indigenous fashion. This second was a cross between a wine cellar and an antique museum, with relics spanning centuries strewn haphazardly next to giant clay fermentation bottles. Buzzed and happy, we headed back to Huacachina to gather our packs and ready ourselves for the overnight bus ride up the Andes.