Saturday 4th -Monday 6th August: Huacachina

After a relatively short 2 hour bus ride – we arrived in the desert town of Ica and were taken by a crazy tuk tuk to our destination town of Huacachina. This town is amazing – a little tropical oasis surrounded by towering sand dunes and desert. If it sounds relaxing and tranquillo, believe me it´s not, souped up dune buggies roar in and out of the town taking tourists to see the desert during daylight hours. In addition, we had arrived on a Saturday afternoon which was very busy and hectic with people organising these dune buggy tours. We checked into our accommodation and then headed out to climb up the nearest sand dune for a view of the sunset. It was hard going, directly up in the sand, and my legs were burning by the time I finally reached the summit! The views over Huachachina and the dunes behind it were incredible! It was quite windy at the top though and we had sand everywhere by the time we had managed to watch the sun go down! It also got really really cold at the top as soon as we lost the sun. It was super fun running down the dunes though to get the bottom! 

The following day we took a dune buggy tour out to see the surrounding areas- it was like something out of Arabian Nights! Our driver took us up and down the dunes at top speed which was hilarious and fun!  We stopped to take photos at viewpoints and also had the opportunity to try sledding down the dunes which was awesome fun but a little tough on the back. We watched the sun set again out in the middle of the desert which was pretty special too!