HUACACHINA
THE BEAUTIFUL SANDDUNES OF
SAND VS. SNOW
Okay, to be honest it is not compareable, but incase you are missing snow activities like snowboarding this could be a good substitute. But Huacachina is not only sandboarding, first of all it is a beautiful oasis surrounded by sand dunes. which is definetly worth a visit.
ICA OR HUACACHINA?
You can do complete guided day trips from Lima that include Paracas & Huacachina. We try to experience as much as possible by ourselves and only do tours where it seems fit. As we wanted to travel in the direction of Ica we decided to take a bus from Lima (roughly 5 hours) to Ica and take that as a base. It is right next to the Oasis Huacachina.
I don’t know what other blogs recommend but from our experience ½ day is completely enough. But as Ica is right next to Huacachina I think you could also stay there for two nights. But don’t expect too much. This is a tiny village around a small oasis lake, and has only tourist accommodation and restaurants.
The most fascinating thing for me was the existence of this place. Ica is a rather unimpressive town with a nice cathedral.
I really liked staying in Ica as it is far more accessible by public bus companys than Huacachina.
RIDING THOSE SANDDUNES
And then you drive to Huacachina and suddenly you are surrounded by Sand dunes and the oasis. But be aware that there are vendors everywhere who want to sell you some souvenirs. And in the lake there are a lot of rowing boats you can rent.
We booked a sand dune tour to go sand boarding because we didn’t want to only hike up the dunes and watch the sunset. I guess it is beautiful too and if you want to save money this is the best option. Our tour did cost us 25 Dollar with the rental of a board per person. A regular wooden board to lay on was included in the tour but we wanted to try sandboarding or in the case of my partner, sand skiing.
When we arrived in Huacachina we needed to go to the rental place and try on the shoes, then carry the stuff up to where the sand buggies were waiting. Our group size was 12 people. The driver drove around the dunes and it was a little like a roller coaster. Everyone was screaming when we were riding down :D
We stopped somewhere in nowhere to take pictures.
And then we drove to the boarding area. First we rode down a little hill to try out. The boards (and skies) need to be waxed before every ride otherwise they won’t slide on the sand. We walked back up to the starting point, and then over to a much longer and steeper hill.
In case you know how to ski or board I strongly recommend renting the equipment. Be brave and go as steep as possible and only make small curves otherwise you will break too much and when the board doesn’t glide enough you will fall down. trust me I know what I am talking about. Unfortunately no one explained to me what to do so I thought it would be quite similar to snow, but it is different and you are not that faster than you would expect on going almost straight down.
After that we had two more hills, and it was A LOT OF FUN !!!!
