Santiago to Mexico City... And back to Mexico City: Huacachina

From Nazca we traveled onto the desert oasis of Huacachina. A luscious lake-side spot concentrated with palm trees and surrounded by miles of sand dunes. The small town, situated near the city of Ica, is a tourist haven of party hostels, pubs, restaurants and tourism agencies. We were surprised to see the number of Peruvian tourists as before now we had mainly come across foreign tourists like us. The town was a bit crazy, it felt like we were on the Jersey Shore of Peru. Nevertheless we managed to check into a hostel complete with a pool.

No time for resting (after an overnight bus, Nazca flight and another bus to Huacachina), as we went straight onto to do a local vineyard & pisco tour, subtly named "The Shitfaced Tour" due to the number of pisco samples. Our first stop was a commercial vineyard, commercially producing wines, grapes and pisco. While the vineyard itself was beautiful, the wines and pisco left a lot to be desired.

We then headed to a local "artesian" pisco vineyard & distillery to see the contrast. Each year in March they have a harvest festival where they produce a lot of pisco the traditional way - in big concrete pits, passing through stages through open concrete channels and drains. It looked like a lot of fun to be a part of. We then got to sample a number of different piscos and pisco mixes they produced. My favourite was the "semi-prepared pisco sour", essentially just pisco, lemon & sugar (ready for egg-whites, ice and a good shake to make a pisco sour - yum!). Now we were definitely feeling happier than when we started but I think the tour name was a bit of an exaggeration...

Tasca, the commercial vineyard.

The setting.

Clay pisco barrels at the artesian vineyard, used in the pisco making process.

A giant concrete pit (for water) and distiller.

The next day we booked for a dune buggy and sandboarding tour in the afternoon. We spent the morning lazing around the pool.

Relaxing beside the pool and dunes.

We got picked up at the hostel in a dune buggy to drive out to the sand dunes. It was dune buggy rush hour trying to make it out of the town! We drove for 15 minutes out of Huacachina and through little villages surrounded by massive sand dunes. It turned out our driver was known for his adrenaline filled sand dune rides - I can't even describe how crazy it was. We were flying over huge dunes, down near vertical drops, banking sideways along ridges... it felt like probably the most dangerous thing I've done but it was so much fun! Much funner than any rollercoaster I've ever been on! We couldn't get enough. Well, maybe the break in the middle for sandboarding was much needed. Sandboarding itself consisted of lying down on boards and sliding down the dunes. I think after our crazy ride there we were a bit disappointed with the excitiment-level. After sandboarding we got a great view of the sunset.