After our adventures in the Lares and Sacred Valley we needed a bit of R&R and what better place to have it than Huacachina - a desert oasis 16 hours towards the coast from Lima. Upon arriving we checked into a hostel with a pool only to be told the it was out of order but we could use one in the hostel next door which we duly did, soaking up the sun and chilling out all day. At sunset we climbed up to the top of the huge sand dunes that surround the town and oasis lake and took in the sun set. That evening, whilst out getting dinner we found a hostel that a girl in Cusco had recommended to us and it turned out to be under half the price of ours, but sadly with no pool. A plan was quickly made to switch hostels but continue to use the pool at the neighbouring hostel as no one had questioned who we were or why we were there! The plan worked wonderfully and we chilled at the same pool everyday we were in town, loving our shady gypsy style but being sure to buy some drinks and lunch at the pool bar to ward off the creeping guilt! The other thing we did whilst in Huacachina was go dune buggying and sandboarding (which turned mainly into sandsledging) and it was amazing! The dune buggies have a touch of Mad Max to them and kick out some incredibly load engine noise. They hammered round the sand dunes at a rate of knots skidding round the corners and bumping over the tops of dunes, kind of like a freestyle rollercoster. We stopped shortly on top of a dune to take in the landscape for some photographs before heading off to try some sandboarding. In reality sandboarding quickly turned into sandsledging as standing up on the rigid wooden boards with velcro straps was almost impossible and a quick way to end up with a face/mouth/eyes/ears/lungs full of sand! Also lying down meant we were allowed to go from the top of much bigger dunes so we spent the next hour with our buggy driver razzing to the top of increasingly huge dunes and letting us slide down to the bottom. There are no photos of the sandsledging but it features at the end of the video below. The Go Pro ran out of battery half way through our fun (I had forgotten to to charge it after WMDR) and we hadn't taken the normal camera for fear of getting sand in it. The whole experience was awesome and we even considered doing it again the next day...
