I first heard about Ica my second night in Lima. One of the guys at the front desk, my friend Andre, recommended that I do a dune buggie tour through the hostel's travel agency. He told me it was very exciting and said I seemed like an adventurous guy, probably because I had already asked how to get somewhere he had never heard of, so I could do something called 'rock climbing'. Ever my parents' child, I figured I would do some research on the internet to see if the listed price of 20 US dollars was reasonable. After some searching, I found out that the tours are actually from the small tourist village of Huacachina, situated just outside of Ica, which surrounds an oasis in the middle of a massive desert. I also had a friend explain to me that, not only was it awesome, it wasn't just a buggie ride; the buggies take you to the tops of the dunes and you sand board for half the time. He said it was easy to do on your own and recommended a company to do the tour with once I got there. It was with this small amount of info that I left Lima, at 5:30 in the morning on 2 hours of sleep, for the first unplanned detour of my trip.
The first weird (and lame) event of the day occured upon arriving in Ica, the closest large city to Huacachina. I was woken from my seat by a busline employee saying it was time for me to get off. I looked out the window at a seemingly upscale adobe building. Upon exiting the bus I found out that it was a hotel. Apparently the bus lines make two stops in Ica, the first one is for doofus travelers who then have to pay more than twice as much for a longer cab ride from a fru fru hotel instead of the bus station. Wha Wha Wha Whaaaaa.
As I said on the last post, the lack of sleep had put me in the unusual foul mood, and this didn't help. Neither did arriving in Huacachina, this beautiful place,
and finding out it was the biggest tourist trap I've ever been to. A person can't walk two feet with out being accosted about buying something and the town is literally comprised of hostels and resturants. No one actually lives there. So I'm all in this mood and I find a place to stash my stuff and just walk around a bit. It was nuts, the place was off the charts beautiful and I just couldn't really enjoy it because of the vibe and my mood. I walked to the 'back' of the little lake and found the place my friend Matt had recommended. It wasn't really even a building, just a plot of land with a fence between two other hostels with an outdoor bar and little huts for rooms. Actually, it looked like this:
They said the tours left at 4:30 and that they were only 30 soles, a little over 10 dollars. The place and the price lightened my mood somewhat. I cruised some more and grabbed some food. I checked my email. I arrived back at the place (the name had the word banana in it but that's all I remeber) a little early and began to chat with the other two dudes I was going to go with. One was from Israel and the other from France. The one from France said he'd done something like this in Chile and sand boarding wasn't that great, nothing like snowboarding. Now I knew even less about what to expect. We all speculated over whether we would be able to get the small buggie since there were only three of us. This was of course supposedly more sporty and adventurous.
When our driver finally did arrive, on Peruvian time (late), the surreal feeling continued because the guy was easily 70 years old. Based solely on appearances I would have guessed he was older than both of my grandfathers. His dress was plain, the way an old Peruvian man would dress in the city, with a jacket and everything. So we load up in the buggy (the small one) and roll out to the entrance to the dunes. The riding, even on the street, is crazy-jerky and the guy stalls it out a couple times. I'm like, 'what the crap...' but eventually we make it out to the dunes. It's at this point that our docile old man driver, rocking a stone-cold emotionless face, hits it like a bat out of hell up the first dune. He maintains this eerie facade as we essentailly ride a roller coaster up, down and around the dunes. After doing something particularly sketchy, he would turn and look directly at the French guy in the front seat (while still driving) and bust out this maniacal laugh like he had us all hostage. Which he did. All we could do was all look at each other and bust out laughing as well. It was awesome and super exciting and this first trip took us to this nice outlook where all the other tour companies had brought their people for photo ops. This is the desert of Huacachina:
This is our crazy awesome driver
They said the tours left at 4:30 and that they were only 30 soles, a little over 10 dollars. The place and the price lightened my mood somewhat. I cruised some more and grabbed some food. I checked my email. I arrived back at the place (the name had the word banana in it but that's all I remeber) a little early and began to chat with the other two dudes I was going to go with. One was from Israel and the other from France. The one from France said he'd done something like this in Chile and sand boarding wasn't that great, nothing like snowboarding. Now I knew even less about what to expect. We all speculated over whether we would be able to get the small buggie since there were only three of us. This was of course supposedly more sporty and adventurous.
When our driver finally did arrive, on Peruvian time (late), the surreal feeling continued because the guy was easily 70 years old. Based solely on appearances I would have guessed he was older than both of my grandfathers. His dress was plain, the way an old Peruvian man would dress in the city, with a jacket and everything. So we load up in the buggy (the small one) and roll out to the entrance to the dunes. The riding, even on the street, is crazy-jerky and the guy stalls it out a couple times. I'm like, 'what the crap...' but eventually we make it out to the dunes. It's at this point that our docile old man driver, rocking a stone-cold emotionless face, hits it like a bat out of hell up the first dune. He maintains this eerie facade as we essentailly ride a roller coaster up, down and around the dunes. After doing something particularly sketchy, he would turn and look directly at the French guy in the front seat (while still driving) and bust out this maniacal laugh like he had us all hostage. Which he did. All we could do was all look at each other and bust out laughing as well. It was awesome and super exciting and this first trip took us to this nice outlook where all the other tour companies had brought their people for photo ops. This is the desert of Huacachina:
This is our crazy awesome driver
This is the scale of the dunes in Ica (the car is a big-A twelve person dune buggie)
And this is another photo of our driver, probably one of my favorites of the trip so far
And this is another photo of our driver, probably one of my favorites of the trip so far
After the photo op, we went for another crazy ride to the place where we were going to sand board. Or so we thought. We spilled out of the buggy and were somewhat disappointed by the site. As big as the dunes were all around us, we were sitting atop little more than a hill, with two more gentle slopes that followed further down. Even so, myself and the other two guys strapped on our boards and headed down. The French guy, Pierre, was an experienced snow boarder and he got the nicest board, a real snowboard, and handled the hills with ease, as well as some disappointment. I also went down standing up snowboard-style although I had never done it before. It went alright. The Israeli guy had already opted to just lay on the board stomach first and sled down the hills. So we get down to the bottom and we start telling our driver that we want bigger hills.
Mischevious smile. Another exciting buggie run. A big hill. A really big hill. In a classic case of Casey Zak syndrome, wherein the victim is convinced that they know how to do something they don't, I decided that I was experienced enough to bomb this hill standing up. I think I made it a quarter of the way down before the board began to spin backwards and in an effort to correct it I wiped, and by wiped I mean I cartwheeled down the hill at mach speeds, getting unintended air and sand in private places. I also broke the straps on the board, tore my favorite shirt with my own finger and severly bruised my pride. As you might guess this was not the point I referred to in the previous blog where the cold chip on my shoulder was mercilessly ripped off. Instead this event sort of put me back in a bad mood and made me a little wary of going again. But a second mondo hill immediately followed the first. On this one I layed down but did so incorrectly and still wiped without getting much speed before meeting the sand with my chest. Even so, the other guys had done just fine and had a blast and they were looking for bigger dunes. Ever the dude and wanting to be along for the ride, I chimed in as well. Another mischevious smile from 'el conductor' . Another ride. The biggest dune I've ever seen in my life.
I have been snow skiing once. I don't think the ski runs were as tall as this bad boy and if they were they were not as steep. Here is a picture I took on our last run of the dune. The tinny black dots are the other two guys I was with.
Mischevious smile. Another exciting buggie run. A big hill. A really big hill. In a classic case of Casey Zak syndrome, wherein the victim is convinced that they know how to do something they don't, I decided that I was experienced enough to bomb this hill standing up. I think I made it a quarter of the way down before the board began to spin backwards and in an effort to correct it I wiped, and by wiped I mean I cartwheeled down the hill at mach speeds, getting unintended air and sand in private places. I also broke the straps on the board, tore my favorite shirt with my own finger and severly bruised my pride. As you might guess this was not the point I referred to in the previous blog where the cold chip on my shoulder was mercilessly ripped off. Instead this event sort of put me back in a bad mood and made me a little wary of going again. But a second mondo hill immediately followed the first. On this one I layed down but did so incorrectly and still wiped without getting much speed before meeting the sand with my chest. Even so, the other guys had done just fine and had a blast and they were looking for bigger dunes. Ever the dude and wanting to be along for the ride, I chimed in as well. Another mischevious smile from 'el conductor' . Another ride. The biggest dune I've ever seen in my life.
I have been snow skiing once. I don't think the ski runs were as tall as this bad boy and if they were they were not as steep. Here is a picture I took on our last run of the dune. The tinny black dots are the other two guys I was with.
We ended up doing that hill three times. Pierre rocked it like a champ, controlling the board and bringing himself down in a long winding path, looking every bit a snowboarder. He said with hills that big it really was similar too. The Israeli guy also had a blast. My first bomb down this hill was the one that tore away my bad mood and anxiety. I laid on the board incorrectly, yet again, and after actually gaining a lot of speed, it slipped out from under me and I flew down the remainder of the hill sand blasting my chest and stomach. But when I got up, I just couldn't be mad, or sad, or bummed or anything. The whole experience was just too cool. On the second go, I sufficiently mastered the simple task of riding a board down a hill on your stomach, after the old man actually laid down on the board and told me what to do. The next two runs were scary in the best way, like riding a rocket with little control but coming out alive in the end. As the light faded, we mounted the buggie for the last time and picked up a straggling local boarder who squeezed between the Israeli guy and I in the back seat. Roaring through that alien landscape, with darkness pretty much already upon us, was a mind blowing experience. I took pictures, but none came out well, as if what I saw was really just some crazy dream. I got back to Huacachina exhausted but happy ad a little bummed about my shirt. I found a cabby who was taking two Columbian girls back into town. After we dropped the girls off I chatted with the cab driver about how pretty they were, in Spanish. He dropped me off at the bus stop, my portal to my next stop Arequipa. I went across the street to the Peruvian version of a fast food joint (it's still not fast) called Norky's chicken I grabbed some food and used the bathroom to get the majority of the sand out of my butt and off my back and chest. The rest wouldn't come out for days. O how I love sand in my nose. Then I crossed the street again and waited. and waited. and waited.....for the next blog post suckas!
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