Ica / Huacachina

Our penultimate destination on our trip, Ica. We arrived in Ica from Arequipa after a very long but luxurious night bus; to put it this way, if you flew in this kind of comfort you’d have probably have had to remortgage your house!!


The final descent from the Andes in the emerging daylight was once again incredible, vast, very baron and lunar-like until we arrived at Ica, where the harsh rocky mountainous suddenly gave way to enormous sand-dunes appearing out of nowhere. Huacachina desert will be our playground for the next few days.


A few hours play with the football high in the dunes in the afternoon was exhausting. The gambit being the closest kick to the dune peak won, too close ran the risk of the ball rolling down the other side where the kicker would need to retrieve it, no small challenge at over 100m vertical and the way back up was of course a case of 2 steps forward 1 step back - great fun. We sat and watched the dune buggies race around us the noise of their V8 engines and passengers’ screams filling the air. We’ll have some of that! We booked up.


3pm the next day we headed out for an hour of thrills. After a brief drive out in the quiet buggy and a mild beginner’s slope for sand boarding we arrived back 1/2 hr later. Definitely “no feliz“!!!! (a well exercised expression of dissatisfaction during our trip). After a brief tête-à-tête we demanded 1/2 our money back with threat of a terrible Google review. To our surprise we got a total refund - result! Off we ran to scope a buggy ready to go. We quickly climbed aboard an upgraded model with the de-rigueur V8. This was more like it but now hoping that at least some form of health and safety has been applied after recent year’s accidents as the driver made us feel as if we were on a rollercoaster! Rising over blind dune crests, careering down the other side and back up to perform 1/2 pipe like turns - great fun and a real adrenaline fix!

Next stop - the sand boarding….To say that it was a touch scary is an understatement! Filled with dread watching our beloved children plunge down a 100 metre dune with above a 45deg drop! We reckoned we were doing over 30mph at the bottom! Of course both parents had to follow behind them. We hope the photos do it justice!

The 2 hour ride ended with incredible sun set views over the dune vista.

Thanks Huacachina!

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