Activity Summary
Sunday 24th September - Day 355 (continued)
Travel to Huacachina
Mid afternoon mango ceviche snack
Walk around town
Carola Lodge BBQ, drinks and karaoke
Monday 25th September - Day 356
Pisco vineyard tasting - Pisco Nietto
Chill at the pool
Dune buggying & sandboarding
Tuesday 26th September - Day 357
Travel to Nazca & Arequipa
Summary
Huacachina
The only desert oasis in South America was pretty special, even if it has since required artificial propping up since 2015 ish from over extraction of groundwater and excessive drilling. The towering sand dunes overheard were great and the activities in the town were great fun.
Well worth the 2 days here, especially to split and slow down in prep for the huge travel day to Arequipa.
Transport
Huacachina
Walk to Carola lodge meeting point for 1.15pm
Realise no one from Peru Hop was coming and then walk to the bus departure point down the road (1.30pm - 5pm)
Bus to Nazca & Nazca lines
Overnight bus to Arequipa (6pm - 5am)
Minibus shuttle to hostel
Accommodation
Huacachina - Desert Nights Hostel
Number of nights - 2
Price per night per person - £11
Positives:
Good location
Comfortable room
Nice rooftop chill area
Swimming pool in the nearby Eco Lodge
Kitchen, albeit a bit rubbish
Private room with two double beds
Negatives:
Shared bathroom
Recommend?
Yes
Diary
Sunday 24th September - Day 355 (continued)
The bus to Huacachina was pretty speedy and once in town we walked and checked into our hostel.
As we had a few nights here we decided to partake in the evening social activity (very out of character for us) which kicked off at a rather late 8pm start time. Therefore a mid afternoon mango ceviche snack was deemed required to sustain Nicola until then.
We had a nice walk around the town, lake and to take in the mad views of the surrounding dunes towering over the place. Pretty incredible.
Luke got a magnet and we spent the rest of the early evening on the rooftop of our hostel booking various final flights. Home time confirmed as 23rd January and a rather large predicted black hole in our £30k travel fund budget. Patagonia ain’t cheap but lordy it looks incredible.
The Carola Lodge BBQ kicked off at 8pm and for £11 each we got unlimited terrible spirits and mixers for an hour plus bbq food that was alright. The value came in the social side which was great fun and got chatting to a few really sound people. Our current Peru hop guide Ricardo was great and we wished they were all like him. Sadly they weren’t.
The karaoke was hilarious to watch and not participate in. Many a drink for Luke later, not so much Nicola, and we were home at around 2am with a renewed sense of optimism with the company kept on the tour buses.
Monday 25th September - Day 356
Of course Luke was hungover and needed paracetamol to function. The morning activity of visiting a Pisco winery was probably not the optimal choice for a lot of people on the bus but it was good to know others were feeling as rough as Luke.
The guide at the winery had endless energy to the point he was fairly difficult to understand. The spiel about how pisco was made was interesting enough.
As expected, they passed around a variety of different pisco concoctions; the sweet ones being really quite nice and as expected the hard liquor ones being terrible.
Then the experience got fun. A few volunteers decided to partake in a ‘Pisco games’ trial which of course simply meant some form of drinking competition and therefore both of us flat out refused.
So with the 40% pure proof ethanol, these guys were tasked with drinking their pisco with the winner declared when their cup didn’t have so much as a drop left once overturned. 3 rounds these guys went at it before someone won, and George really regretted his decision to be part of the fun. But it made for hilarious watchings.
Lunch was at the winery which was ok but the peanut noodle soup thing Nicola had was apparently awful and chewy.
Once back in town we spent some time chilling in the pool which did wonders for making Luke feel better and then we were off for the big activity - dune buggying and sandboarding.
At the Carola lodge meeting point, in a random small desert oasis in Peru and by complete chance, Luke ended up reunited with Danny & Sara who were legacy Moore Stephens colleagues he had worked with way back when. Fortunately for all involved everyone remembered each other, otherwise it would have been mighty awkward. So we had a great afternoon catching up as we all feared for our lives.
From the night before we had had some fair warning about the experience but not a whole lot to actually prepare for what went down.
The dune buggying was fucking nuts.
There were 9 of us per buggy with racing car style seat belts wedging us into our seats. It turns out the drivers are nutcases and as soon as we were all bolted in, he tore off up, down and around dunes like the devil reincarnated. Everyone was thrown around like rag dolls, Sara wasn’t even properly strapped in the first time, and naturally the ‘o fucks’ we’re mighty prevelant as he bombed it down steep sand dunes. A rollercoaster on steroids without the security that we’d actually survive the experience.
By the time we’d got to the sandboarding I don’t think anyone had any adrenaline left.
The sandboarding almost seemed tame in comparison, probably not helped by the terrible boards that were cracked and splintered. No amount of wax was going to help with the fissures on the base of these boards which was a shame because others in the cars were absolutely flying.
But the sand dunes were super cool. Everywhere we looked, they covered the scenery.
Once done boarding we were driven to a spot to watch the sunset over the dunes. Pretty nice.
The drop off spot was at the top of the dunes overlooking Huacachina so we got a proper view of the desert oasis from up high.
The evening was spent cooking in the hostel and some much needed time winding down from the last two days.
Tuesday 26th September - Day 357
Our nice relaxing morning was interrupted somewhat by some classic incompetence from Peru Hop that would continue throughout the day. We had done the pisco tour the day before, deciding we didn’t want to do that and then travel for 15 hours afterwards, so naturally we weren't going to be redoing the experience today but this hadn’t trickled down the system. Not really surprising because the endless school registers for activities is archaic and ripe with potential error.
So after getting a rather stressed visit from the hostel owner saying we had missed our tour and an interestingly aggressive email, we managed to straighten up that they were wrong and would indeed be on the 1.30pm bus to Nazca.
Not expecting things to go smoothly we arrived early at the lodge, being the meeting point. After 40 minutes and the no one from Peru Hop turning up Nicola went to investigate where we knew the bus was departing from and just about managed to catch a rep to stress call the bus and say there were 4 of us waiting. Seems we’d only just managed to make it before the fuckers were about to drive off, despite us being where we were supposed to be. The bus was also absolutely rammed and pretty damn hot so only just about managed to get a seat sitting next to each other.
Two stresses in 2 hours. Not going all that well.
The bus wasn’t great as we had two Americans in front who decided to fully recline the chairs into sleep mode for the whole journey. What should have been comfortable with plenty of space ended up being rather annoying and cramped.
The first of two stops before continuing on to Arequipa was a Nazca lines viewing platform. So we walked up the platform, wind savagely kicking around and had a top view of some of the Inca patterned ground.
Worth a drive by stop but not staying in Nazca for.
Somehow we managed to be left off the dinner order spreadsheet so cock up number 3 arrived in the form of ‘you have no food’. The communication of the guy today had been horrendous. Nicola was initially told no when asked to order but were able to get something sorted once everyone had their pre-orders done. The food sucked but it was necessary before the night bus portion.
At 6pm we were on the night bus to Arequipa.
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