Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Another lonnnng day...
Thanks to my body clock being thrown by the time difference, I was up quite early at around 7, taking in the fumes and beeping horns of Lima's highways.
Soon, I said goodbye to the 1900 Backpackers and made my way to the Cruz del Sur bus terminal. Cruz del Sur Is the largest and most prestigious Peruvian bus company - the Emirates of the Peruvian highway. Unfortunately, they're also a stickler for the rules. Officially you need your original passport and not just a photocopy to travel by bus in Peru. However, I'd elected to leave my passport locked in my main bag locked away in hostel storage. As a result, I was turned away from boarding, meaning I wasted 10usd on a ticket I didn't use. Doh!
So I decided to take a taxi to the Peru Bus company terminal - the British Airways of the Peruvian highway. They let me on with my passport photocopy and I was off down the Panamerica highway - playing angry birds on a seatback TV to the sound of a murderous Japanese film dubbed in Spanish.
The bus journey was interesting. We started with passing through some of Lima's most notorious and violent neighborhoods such as Villa El Salvador. Following that, we headed past a series of bleak, seriously impoverished fishing villages before, after 2 hours, we were finally free of the mists that roll in off the Pacific during the Peruvian winter.
As we neared Ica, the views got more interesting. We passed some huge agricultural operations - bizarrely including a Trinidadian Grape plantation that was shipping in and out local workers by the hundred. The land was mostly very dry, crumbly rock, punctuated by the occasional incredibly lush well irrigated patch of farmland.
Eventually, we arrived in Ica. Ica was just as crazy as Lima, and I elected to avoid the hustling taxi drivers menacingly shouting 'oi gringo!' to take a tuk-tuk, my first in South America! The tuk-tuk ride was exhilarating, Henry (the driver) dodging in and out of gaps as cars bikes trucks taxis etc went every direction. We made it alive to the nearby oasis town of Huacachina.
Huacachina Is a well established spot on the Peruvian gringo trail. It's packed with mostly Dutch and German Backpackers and some aggressive touts selling sunglass and GoPro sticks. But it's worth it.
Soon after arriving and dumping my stuff in the hostel, I got one of the last spots on the dune buggies heading out for sunset. It was phenomenal.
Driven by a Venezuelan refugee in a buggy with seat belts that barely worked and a torn rear tyre, we headed out into the dunes. This trip would give thorpe park a run for its money. We hurtled up and down dunes at (genuinely) breakneck speed. It was a fantastic adrenaline rush to wake me up from a bit of jet lag slumber. To top it all off, we went sand boarding.
The tour is designed in a very clever way. When the buggy drivers take you to the dune for you to board down, they make sure you haven't seen it from the bottom first. That way, you don't actually realise quite how steep it is. Some may dislike that, but I think its a great way of making sure you push yourself to have the best time you can actually have, because the chances are you could always go down a steepeer, taller dune than you think you can when looking at it.
We started on baby dunes that were really only fun if you sat on the board as lying down you could get the same feeling getting into a bath. Then, the dunes got taller and taller, and whilst it was a bit of a give away that our guide told us not to bother climbing back up the dune you still had no idea quite how steep it really was until you looked back up!
Definitely a good detour, and nice to break up the travelling and actually see something. Tomorrow I'm making my way back up to Lima and then Friday I'm flying to Cusco before taking a mammoth overnight bus to La Paz Bolivia.
Anyway, I thoroughly recommend Huacachina despite the fact I could be in Eindhoven or Bremen right now. Well, apart from the sand between my shin hairs.
Vamos!
- comments