Huacachina, Peru
13 July 2023
Huacachina is a small oasis town built around a small lake that’s little bigger than a pond. Huacachina sits in the Ica Desert, part of Peru’s vast coastal desert system that stretches along the Pacific. It has a reputation as a party town, but that’s not my scene, so I didn’t go looking.
Día 1
We left Paracas and the Pacific coast at around 1:00 p.m. and arrived in Huacachina just after 2:15 p.m. The drive quickly shifted from ocean views to wide, desert landscapes. In the distance, I could see a hazy mountain range rising beyond the sand. I looked it up, and those were the western edges of the Andes Mountains.
Not long after arriving, I signed up for a dune buggy tour into the surrounding sand dunes. There are rental shops all around town that rent old snowboards, and I decided to rent one. I ended up being the only person in my group who did.
From the rental shops I walked with my tour group to a staging area where all the dune buggies were parked. The ride was intense! The driver flew straight up steep dunes, dropped down the other side, and cut sharply across the sloping sides of dunes.
We made our first stop at a smaller dune where people sledded down.
I had been sandboarding before. But I had used real sandboard equipment. The old snowboard was clunky, but the ride down was still fun!
I went back for seconds.
We got back in the buggy for another joy ride.
I was legitimately scared at times.
Our next stop was a much taller dune.
This one was steep enough to get my heart going.
During the breaks, I chatted with a couple of guys sitting in the same row of the buggy.
We drove to another spot and parked on top of a high dune and watched the sun sink into the desert. The light turned the sand gold, and the shadows stretched across the hills in every direction.
It started getting cold quickly. I launched my drone and got some photos and videos. It was a memorable sunset.
After sunset, I walked around Huacachina itself. The town is tiny, just a ring of buildings surrounding a small lake.
Palm trees line the water, and at night the hotels and restaurants glow with bright lights reflected across the surface. I grabbed dinner somewhere nearby, wandered a bit longer, and then headed back to my hostel for the night.
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