Huacachina - Peru

Tiny, fun and relaxing.

Getting to Huacachina was not so fun. We were picked up at 5:30am and didn’t get to Huacachina until 7:30pm. Obviously we’ve done longer bus journeys but they’ve been overnight so we’ve just slept. Luckily we stopped for lunch in a gorgeous place along the coast with amazing views, we stopped to see the Nazca lines that were very underwhelming and they played 3 films which kept us occupied between naps. We also got to enjoy the most incredible sunset, the best either of us had ever seen. The whole sky was completely red.

On the first day we went to a wine and pisco bodega to learn about how the two drinks are made and to have a tasting. Our guide explained that in Peru, they like everything super sweet and therefore their wines are fermented for a lot less time than European ones for example. We began the tasting with Peruvian rosé. A wine Rachel liked!! It was super sweet and everyone in the group dislike doing how sweet it’s was. It was more like a dessert wine in the UK. Next up was a white wine, ‘this one was more floral and dry, still sweet in terms of ‘normal wine’. Finally for wines a red wine, again sweet but we both really enjoyed this one, their red wine more resembles a ‘normal’ rosé. Time for pisco, at 46% alcohol it isn’t a very strong liquor, Peruvians tend to drink it on its own so we did the same. Neither of us particularly liked the pisco, but then we tried a pisco cream, and that was delicious. Sort of like baileys but more sweet and caramel flavours. We then ended up at the chocolate counter and had a few samples and bought a couple to bring back for later. We headed back to the hostel and wandered around the oasis which took no time at all as it’s tiny, chilled, then headed to the main activity dune buggying and sandboarding, when we got there we were given a number but then it turns out we had to go in a different buggy, this buggy was already full apart from the front seats. Josh definitely didn’t want to sit here but we had no choice. Strapped in we sent off on the sand dunes at some speed. A lot of sand was blown up into our faces, but we were actually happy in the end to be sat there as we think the experience wouldn’t have been the same. When then stopped to do the sandboarding. No one seemed keen to go first, leaving Rachel to be the first. The first hill was kind of steep and she had no idea what to expect. You had to lie on your stomach and then the guide would just push you over the edge. So much fun!! We both absolutely loved it, the second hill was much steeper and longer and then we got to go down a few more before setting off again in the buggy. We stopped to watch sunset, this was amazing over the vast dunes. Then it was time to head back down to the oasis.