Huacachina is so bloody tiny yet it feels like we could stay
here for ages if we were let! Having battled to get to sleep last night due to
the rowdy nightclub nextdoor, that seems to pump out the tunes despite the
complete lack of customers, we awoke to glorious sunshine and the awesome sight
of massive sand dunes at the back of the hostel. The oasis town of Huacachina
is located in the middle of some of the biggest sand dunes I have ever seen,
and their size only becomes truly apparent when you see someone trying to climb
one, or standing on the top of one. As we were eating breakfast out by the pool
(fah fah fah), we saw one guy expertly making his way down on a sandboard
with the same ease as the veteran
snowboarders I’ve tried to mimic on my past snowboarding holidays.
Obvioulsy, with a pool at the hostel, the day was mostly
spent sunning ourselves, alternating between sweating in the baking heat for 15
minutes and jumping into the frigid pool for 5 minutes’ respite from the desert
sun. In order to receive room rent for cheaper than the norm, we agreed to book
a dune buggying / sandboarding excursion through the hostel. This made me a bit
dubious at first, as I was afraid that if the dune buggy driver had the same
feckless and “hell if I care!” attitude as the male receptionist, then the
buggy would more than likely be flipped over at some point and we’d all drown
in Peruvian desert sand, lost forever. Dramatic I know, but health and safety
really is not a concern over here, I’ve yet to get into a taxi where there are
actually working seat belts available. However, at 4pm today, I put my
reservations aside and set off in a buggy with some extremely giddy Japanese
girls, a very pierced sandboarding instructor and Alfredo, our suicidal,
wannabe World Rally Championship driver. We were driven, full speed up, down,
over and inbetween sand dunes that appeared as tall as some of the mountains
that we had previously climbed through in other locations on our trip. I
battled between opening my mouth to scream with terror / excitement and getting
lungs full of sand. Kev of course, being a seasoned traveller, and prepared for
all eventualities, had his scarf over his mouth and head, resembling some kind
of Lawrence of Arabia extra. The louder we all squealed with fear, the crazier
the ride became, which made the experience all the more fun. Once we reached
some sand dunes to hurtle ourselves down on sandboards, we stopped for a brief
instruction from the super-pierced guy before grabbing our boards
(laminate-covered 2 X 4s with dodgy Velcro straps) and trying to display our
prowess amongst our peers. I of course, cocky as hell from my previous,
relatively successful snowboarding trips (successful in the sense that all
bones remained unbroken) decided that I’d show them all how it’s done, which
immediately resulting in my face-planting into a pile of sand, realising that
the pieces of floorboard attached to my feet were about as effective is
sand-carving as helium balloons are in supporting a Transatlantic crossing. As
we got more and more courageous, we were brought to taller and taller dunes,
where instead of attempting to snowboard properly, we were pushed down the
scary hill lying on the boards on our bellies, which proved to be much more
fun, as it meant that 100% of the participants were actually able to do the
task in hand, happily dusting off the layers of sand after gravity finally
pulled us to a stop.
After the physical exertion of the previous day, the next
day we decided a day of gently culture-seeking was next on the cards. After yet
again another morning in the sun, we got ourselves a dodgy matchbox-type taxi
into Ica to visit the Regional culture museum. We were accompanied by Justin, a
very American “cool dude” and we were attracted there mainly due to reports
that they had a collection of misshapen skulls from pre-Inca civilisations.
These skulls, which I can only describe as elongated and cone-shaped, were
purposely figured this way from very soon after the child was born, by placing
plates / weights either side of the head to put pressure on the fragile skull
which eventually would mould the skull into a skinny, elongated version of a
normal skull. How this affected brain functioning I have no idea, if at all,
but it seems pretty silly to me, when you consider the fact that it was all
done as a mere status symbol – the more cone-shaped and taller your skull was,
the richer / more important you were in society. I mean plastic surgery is one
thing, but this seems a bit ridiculous! The museum also had a to-scale model of
the Nasca lines out the back which to be honest, has totally abated my
curiosity to see them in real life. I think I’ll keep my $90 which would have
been spent on the rickety flight to see the lines in the sand and spend it on
things I’m pretty sure I’d prefer to see or do.
We also decided to go visit a witches’ coven, or so we were
promised, in the small village of Cachiche. It turned out to be a very
non-descript “park”, with a golden statue and some neatly arranged stones.
Acknowledging the fact that my fortune was not about to be revealed to me by
some babbling witch with grey hair, a cat and a warty nose, we decided to get
out of Rape-ville and head back to Huacachina, where we arrived in time for the
glorious sunset. We attempted to ascend the massive sand dunes surrounding the
oasis village, to achieve and better view. We did so, with much huffing and
puffing and not before we had drank the entire contents of a 2 Litre bottle of
water. I may have essentially lost a stone in weight in sweat but it was most
definitely worth it; uninterrupted views of arid desert landscape, with the
occasional dune buggy crossing our view with the screams of the passengers
almost trailing afterwards. After about an hour, watching the sun descend below
the dunes, and illuminating the sky in yellowish-pink hues, we decided to head
back before the cold hit us. They seriously do need some kind of clean-up effort
here though as the volume of litter among the dunes is quite criminal and
spoiled an otherwise pristine landscape. Coming back down the dunes was a whole
different ball game however, I could barely tell what was up and what was down
as I tripped and slid my way back towards the village and I think I’ll be
shaking sand out of my hiking boots for weeks to come.
Where we stayed: Casa de Arena http://www.casa-de-arena-hotels.com/
How much?: 25 soles per person per night, double room,
private bathroom
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