Wednesday morning I woke up feeling terrible. My body hurt and my stomach was churning. Our plan was to go to Huacachina first thing and go for a dune buggy ride and sandboarding extravaganza. I was in no condition to do either item. After several trips to el baño, I said I wanted to take the one hour bus trip to the desert city and see if I felt better by afternoon. It was a bit nerve wracking sitting o a bus with no bathroom, but we made it to our destination problem free, while I distracted myself watching an español Steve Carrell in "Bruce Almighty."
When we arrived in town, we had no specific locale in mind where we would be staying, but our taxi driver recommended a popular hostel. Upon checking in we realized this was a party hotel which made me nervous considering I wasn´t feeling well at all! The receptionist showed us to our modest room and shared bathrooms. She explained that the water wouldn´t be working for a few hours (we also discovered at night there was no light in the bathroom either). So yes, you guess it, I was running back and forth to a bathroom with no water in it for several hours. Ahh...this is the life! It was a miserable day and Guy was going stir crazy. He ended up walking up a giant dune next to our hostel while I rested. As nighttime approached I feared for an all night party extravaganza, but luckily the only noise we experienced was music pumping in the distance (which I luckily slept through). Huacachina is a quite small desert town with one main attraction - sand dunes...for buggy rides and sandboarding. All of the hostels are said to have ¨dimly lit pools¨which adventure sport seekers sit around all night and party. I´m guessing that´s more of the summer season experience, which we are obviously not here for. By late evening I was feeling a bit better so we grabbed a bite to eat and walked around the one lake in the middle of town. The picture you see here is of our hostel. The one above is of the whole town.
The next morning I was feeling much better and excited to get to the reason we came to Huacachina. We started off the morning by going to breakfast at a place called "Bananas", which was a little piece of paradise for me. We had lots of freshly cut veggies, fruit and juice, rolls with jam and tea. With hammocks strewn across the yard, places to lounge, mellow Jack Johnson music playing, funny little dogs running around, and the sun shining, it felt like it was going to be a good day. We hung around the pool before heading out on our desert adventure.
A throng of people gathered in front of our hostel late afternoon while several dune buggies pulled up to pack us all in. Eight of us fit into our vehicle, including the driver, and Guy sat in the front with him, while I was in the back with two Australian boys (who, I found out, were also on a year long journey!). After strapping ourselves in, we zipped off, and I was certain we were in for a wild ride. If the taxi drivers were any indication of craziness, the dune buggy drivers were in a whole new class of psychotic! I braced myself with all four limbs as we headed straight to the dunes at a blinding speed. With all the climbing, twisting and twirling, it felt like we were on a rollercoaster with no tracks. Of course it was a bit rough and lots of sand flying everywhere (including my mouth), but it was so much fun!
We arrrived at our first stop to take photos, and it was spectacular. Mountains of dunes, carefully smoothed into beautiful shapes by the desert winds, sometimes punctuated by footprints or carved by previous boarders. We jumped back into our wild machine for a trip to our second stop where we would try our hand at sand boarding. There were two methods...strap your feet onto the board, or lay on it and descend face first. Guy chose the first option and I the second. It was quite entertaining watching our very international group attempt this task. Even the Aussie boys who had a lot of snow boarding experience intially struggled because the texture of the sand is so different. I´m pretty certain it was everyone´s first experience anyways. It was pretty intimidating on the first run, but was exhilerating and very fun.
We gradually worked up to larger dunes, and then arrived at the final ¨hill¨which as we approached, weren´t able to see...just a few faces looking quite serious and mouthing, "oh no!" It was very steep and VERY gigantic. A few brave souls went down after several minutes. Then Guy started down and I was too afraid to watch. Of course he made it down fine. There were five of us standing there debating if we could be brave enough to go face first on such a hill, since no one had yet to try that method. Several people simply walked down the hill. Finally a man went down face first, and gave the other 4 of us the courage to go for it. I was terrified as I laid on my board, unable to see the bottom...the hill looking as if it went back into itself because it was so steep! But I took a deep breath and pushed myself off, dragging my feet behind me (the entire time I might add) to slow my racing speed. Of course I ate some sand and bruised my forearms and hips, but it was quite a thrilling ride!
From there we headed back to our buggy to return to the hostel. Our driver took us to a spectacular view of the sunset before zipping us back. If you ever get a chance to go sand boarding, I highly recommend it! This was definitely my favorite experience so far.
That evening we headed out to get some dinner and I tried the country´s most famous dish...ceviche. Ceviche is fresh fish marinated (or ¨cooked¨) in a sauce of lime juice and sliced onions. It really was quite delicious, but I couldn´t finish it because the serving size was huge, and really, I didn´t want to overdo my raw fish intake!
From Huacachina we took a two hour bus ride to Nazca. Though we are here for just over a day, we´ve been able to experience some interesting things. Our hostel is run by a very nice family who made us breakfast, offered us the quietest accomodations we´ve had thus far, and organized a short tour for us today. Our nice tour guide Adrien (sp?) picked us up to take us to look at the¨"Nazca Lines," ancient geoglyphs created by the Nazca people hundreds of years ago. Etched into the desert ground, many figures can be found across the land including hummingbirds, spiders, monkeys, fish, sharks or orcas, llamas, and lizards...each form created using a single line. While some people choose to fly over the desert to get the most dramatic view, we chose to go with our guide for the "economical" views, one on a hill and one on a short tower. It was interesting to see and our guide was full of information, but our view wasn´t terribly impressive. We then went to a museum made it honor of a German woman who spent many of her years studying and preserving the lines. On the way back we were stopped in traffic for what seemed like an eternity due to an accident, but couldn´t do much about it considering there is only one main road! We made it back safely though, and now spending a few hours in an internet cafe before getting onto our Cruz Del Sur bus for a 15 hour ride to Cusco. Next up...Machu Picchu!
FUN!!! Can't wait to hear about the next stop.
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