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Before we could get to Huacachina, we took a taxi from Ica, which took about 10 minutes in the afternoon traffic. We arrived at the recommended hostel, Hostel Casa De La Reina, and on entering, there seemed to be a good atmosphere. The hostel had a pool with a bar and plenty of people out enjoying themselves in the afternoon sun.
After throwing our bags onto our bunks, we got changed into our boardies and headed down to the pool. There, I saw Matt and Keith from Nazca, so got chatting to those guys and some others they´d been talking to. For the next couple of hours, we sat around the hostel chatting and drinking a few beers. I was intoroduced to an English guy, Tom, who was telling me about the place and what was available to do there. We went over to the bar area to continue drinking and mingling. There was a Dutch girl René had been talking to, called Maryjn, and Tom´s mate, Russ.
The conversation moved onto previous travel destinations, as always, and Russ was describing his travels in India. He was telling us how good it was there and started to begin a story about how it´s possible to get onto a Bollywood show....my mind went into overdrive....I know this strory...I´ve told this story to other people....I´m about to hear it from it´s original source....a click of my fingers...I interrupted him mid-sentence:
"What´s your surname?" I asked, speaking quickly.
"Brooks", came the reply.
"You´ve got a brother named Greg, haven´t you? Greg is a mate of mine, I´ve been away on holiday with him a few times!" I responded in turn.
The surprised look on the people´s faces around and the recognition of this chance meeting was met with laughs and woah´s from the others. So, the next few minutes were spent piecing together this strange coincidence.
The way I came to know this story is rather random too. Greg, Russ´ brother, once mistakenly copied me in on an email reply to his mother and brother. The topic of the email was about travelling, and the urge to read the email got the better of me. Well, it had been sent to me, so why not have a read? So, I read the story written by Russ about how he had been picked off the street to appear as a Frenchman in a Bollywood movie. The email contained a picture of him in that very movie too. From this appearance, he got the chance to work on a famous Indian soap opera, viewed by millions of Indians every day.
On talking to Greg at a later date in person about this, he also told me how his brother had been selected from the English crowd in a rain soaked India versus England cricket match, to take part in an arm wrestle. To pass the time and entertain the millions watching on television, Russ would beat his Indian opponent and have some very interesting stories to tell. Indeed, I found this story amusing and have told it to several others too.
I would say this is my strangest meeting along the trail so far, given the unlikely nature to which it was borne.
So, Russ could at this point finish his story, after which we got chatting about his family, Greg, Adam (from uni, through whom I know Greg) and other Brooks related topics. It was obvious once the recognition was made. I could see Greg´s features in Russ´, the obvious exception being the different hair colour. Then there were the gestures and the voice, which has the same intenations and accent, and even a similar style of humour.
After a while longer drinking, we headed off to our dorm to sleep, which we would need plenty of, ahead of the next day sandboarding.
The next day we lazed around for a while as the sandboarding / dune buggies trip only started around 4pm. We´d been told we should ask for a driver by the name of Alfredo, so we duly did. A mistake it did not turn out to be.
The dune buggies were loaded with our sandboards and we drove off, in the driving beasts that they are. The buggies are powerful monsters, capable of climbing steep sand dunes with the equivalent roar of ten tigers and the speed of a puma. Our driver, Alfredo, is a lunatic. Plain and simple. Legend has it he was born to a mad magician and an Amazonian superwoman, the strongest attributes of both creating a man-creature with no sense of fear.
We were driven at a blistering pace over the sand to our first stop for some sandboarding. The views from the tops of the hills of sand were impressive, a great backdrop to carve up the sand. I´d done a bit before so after a couple of goes, was well into it. Soon, we got back into the buggies and drove onto our next stop. On the way, Alfredo would make nothing of driving up what looked like an impossible dune, only to quickly turn the buggy, and race back down. How we stayed upright is a mystery to me, our driver at times defying the physical laws of gravity. Our rollcage seemed sturdy enough, although I wasn´t too sure about the rusty over-the-shoulders seat harness keeping us locked down. After some more heart-stopping moments flying over the end of a dune, not knowing how big the drop was, we stormed into where the other, tame by comparison, drivers had brought their passengers. Alfredo would see a driver friend of his already stopped, and decide to frighten him by roaring and skidding along the sand, braking hard about an inch from where he was standing. Laughing, he would jump out and ridicule his friend about how he´d scared him.
The largest sand dune yet was next, but a few metres down, my Velcro strap binding came off my board at the back. It reminded me off something that happened to my uni mate Josh a few years ago on a snowboard, but with less injuries involved. I was annoyed as I was carving the slope pretty well before that, and had a crowd of about 30, as most didn´t feel up to boarding down without jeeing themselves up! So, with a few people body boarding down and some sandboarding down, there were some spectacular falls! A short walk up the next dune gave us another slope. This time we all body boarded down. You pick up some good speed, but need to be careful of others who´ve ´crashed and burned´ in front of you!
After one final slope, the largest of the lot, we took a few photos by the buggies. This was a good opportunity to take some photos of Russ and I (Greg´s brother), which I would email to Greg later to surprise him with the story of our meeting! The next part of the ride was the most awesome, and Alfredo would prove why he is recommended to travellers by other travellers.
For the next I don´t know how long, we raced up and down sand dunes at ridiculous speeds, making the whole journey seem like one long rollercoaster ride. We would race and overtake other, more inferior buggies, powering past them and nose-diving over the end of a dune, forcing you downwards too, followed by a jolt when you hit the floor. I tried taking some video footage but it´s pale in comparison to the actual experience. At one point, we drove to the start of a dune we´d just done. Then, Alfredo pointed the buggy forward, put it in reverse and drove it backwards quickly. We were already aware of the scale of the drop of the dune we were headed for, and I was sure the rollcage we be tested. Just as we reached the edge, Alfredo flung the buggy round, ceasing our screams of dread and expectation of certain doom. Nervous automatic laughing ensued, our driver asking if we wanted to continue sandboarding, or with the buggy. The unanimous reply was met with a roar of the engine as we were flung sand dune over sand dune, racing along the desert at a crazy pace. At times, I couldn´t catch my breath for the speed we were going, and it was difficult to see for the granules of sand in the air. It was how I imagine being in a sandstorm, and when it was over, we were all high on adrenaline, definitely ready for a beer from the hostel bar!
It would have been a decent night´s sleep, but the resident alcoholic, an Irish guy called Robin, decided to wake everyone up at ridiculous o´clock. Since it was a dorm of about 15, there were a few unhappy people, telling him to...er, keep quiet or else. Robin apparently didn´t remember this the next day, asking if anyone else was awake a few minutes later for a chat, and then several minutes after that, asking if anyone wanted a game of cricket.
After relaxing the next day, spending time on the internet updating, and in an Israeli-dominated bar where they gave out free calm-inducing ´cigarettes´, to which I didn´t take part Mum and Dad, we played some funny card games and had a laugh.
The next day, René and I left the others and travelled up to Pisco, to see the nature reserve there on the coast.
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