Peru, West of the Andes, is a desert. It is a continuation of the Atacama Desert that is found in Chile. This desert varies in appearance throughout Peru and while in Paracas I saw a lot of salt deposits covered by a thin layer of sand. My next destination would be Huacachina which looks like your stereotypical desert full of towering sand dunes.
Huacachina is an actual desert oasis formed due to an underground current of water. Due to overuse water has to be put back into this oasis to prevent it from being completely drained. It turns out that this is a party oasis and had I known that I may have stayed in Ica which is just 15 or so minutes away. I would be here for less than 24 hours so I could deal with it. Music was heard playing until 6am.
The afternoon that I arrived at this oasis would prove to be extremely exciting. I had signed up to ride a dune buggy through the dunes. The driver was crazy and there were several times I thought we would roll over. We got some serious speed and we could feel the wind and sand blowing through our hair. We would go up a sand dune and straight down the other side. It was definitely like a roller coaster. At one point we caught some major air and things flew out of the back.
Eventually we made out way to the top of one of the large sand dunes and everyone got out. It was time for our sandboarding. We were each given a board and lined up along the ridge. It as a long way down and fairly steep so it was definitely a little nerve wracking. Eventually it was my turn to go down and it was so much fun! At the bottom we were able to walk up another short ridge and continue boarding down the dune.
When our sandboarding was done we got back into the buggy and continued to another dune to catch the sunset. We sat there enjoying just how peaceful it was. Once the sun set we were back in the buggies and headed back to Huacachina, racing other buggies in the process.
I spent part of the evening sitting next to the water enjoying this unique location. As it got even darker I decided to venture partway up one of the sand dunes to escape the lights of town to look at the stars. I was not disappointed. There still was a lot of light pollution but I was able to make out several constellations including Crux (Southern Cross) a well known constellation only visible in the Southern Hemisphere.
The next morning I would leave Huacachina. It was worth a visit but one night was enough. I’d be spending the next 18 or so hours on a bus but there was a brief stop in Nazca to see some of the Nazca lines. If I decided to stay in Nazca I could have taken a flight to see more but three were visible from the viewing tower the bus stopped at.
