I have read constantly about the need to watch your baggage whilst on buses in Peru and this warning was borne out today when two of our fellow passenger's bag's went missing during our five hour bus trip south. I had my suspicions about the standard of the bus line from the start of the journey (always judge a company by the range and quality of snacks in their cafe) so had been getting off whenever the baggage hold was opened to make sure no light-fingered riff-raff made off with our dirty washing.
To call Huacachina a town would be like calling Jennifer Aniston an actress – it's stretching the truth tremendously.
In reality Huacachina is a small lake surrounded by a smattering of hotels, restaurants and the odd bar flanked by enormous sand dunes – an oasis on the edge of a huge dessert. And Jennifer Aniston is an imbecile who occasionally moves her face in romantic comedies.
The done thing here – not surprisingly – concerns sand and the varying things that can be done with it – sandboarding and buggy riding being the most popular, with sandcastle building not quite making the cut. I rode out on a dune buggy tour in the early evening which was superb and I now have some sympathy for how a 500-year-old building must feel when it gets sand-blasted clean. It was a bit like a roller-coaster ride without all those triffling western safety standards.
Occasionally the driver would stop the buggy, point down a 200m sheer-drop sand dune and invite us to slide down it on a very poorly maintained piece of wood. After setting aside all fears and most common sense I discovered it was a an incredibly fun way to spend the evening. I re-evaluated this sometime later during the three hours it took to remove sand from places that sand had no reason to be.
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