Hucachina, Peru

Hucachina, Peru

So we saved a few bucks driving from Columbus to Fort Lauderdale to catch our flight but, in the long run, bad idea. 20 hours of driving and the price of gas and rental car didn't really make it worth it. We got in to Lima after a layover in Bogota around 1am and luckily had a pre-reserved room. We took a day to check out downtown Lima and formulate a game plan for the rest of the trip. We decided to skip Bolivia for this trip, time and civil war were not permitting, so we headed south to Huacachina to do some sandboarding on their giant dunes. Partway there, we decided to hop off the bus in Pisco to see the national reserve nearby. Reserva Nacional de Paracas had a sharp cliff coastline as well as a group of islands that is home to several million birds. The bird population is so large that Peru exports their dung for fertilizer. At one points, it is 50 meters thick. We saw several sea lions in addition to the birds. One of the islands had a gigantic engraving of candelabra/cactus that was several hundred meters tall. No one knows when or by whom it was made. We left that evening for Huacachina. We made it to the hostel right before sunset, checked in, and attempted to run up a dune to see the sun set. Sophie and I barely made it up without passing out. Climbing a few hundred meters of sand is harder than you think. The hostal had some dune buggys so we went out first thing in the morning. It was incredible! we brought sandboards and they took us to all the best runs, some quite frightening. Chris got going really good and then biffed something fierce and got a face and earful of sand. The rest of us took a bit longer to get really going and only casually ate sand. Our driver seemed to be having fun as he took us on a ride that was as intense as a roller coaster. We all made it back in one piece, cleaned the sand out of everything, and are now on our way to Arequipa.

Start Slide Show