Peru Part One: HUACACHINA

After a long flight (six hours from Houston to Lima), we arrived in Peru late and caught a taxi to the Wasihpy Hostel to get five hours of sleep. The place was good enough for five hours—though it was my first introduction to a Latin American showerhead . . . all you get is a drizzle, and the temperature mysteriously vacillates from scalding hot to freezing cold on a whim.

The next morning featured a near three-car pileup, a bus terminal with a curious customer-service strategy, then a five-hour ride on a double-decker bus through Lima's nondescript desert (marked by the bus breaking down not once, but thrice). Alas, we made it to Ica and caught a ride to oasis town of Huacachina, where the true beginning of our Peru recap begins . . .

Huacachina is full of quaint doors like this. And colorful buildings, too.

We all took a dip in the waters of Huacachina, which are rumored to hold curing powers (or a small percentage of the town's sewage. Maybe both).
It was a nice little swim, except for all the attention we got from the locals. Apparently foreigners are rarely seen in the water. Some teenaged boys made fun of Spencer for his scientific depth estimate, but he won them back with a back flip off a palm-tree stump. Cue GOOD Magazine's back-flip video—"We are all part of a team—a back-flip team . . ."

Peruvians ROCK the fanny pack—only there it's called a Kangaroo. This guy was sort of one of our waiters . . . though for the most part, he was sneaking spiked Chicha from the restaurant's punch bowl. He was thrilled to learn we were from Utah—like all those "religious guys" they have walking around in suits. :) Every time he passed our table, or saw us later in the day, he'd yell "Utah, Utah, USA!"
The restaurant's menu, fittingly titled.

Soccer canchas abound in Peru, from rudimentary sticks for goals set up in the middle of the desert to cement fields to real grass. This one was right next to our hotel. Lots of graffiti, real metal posts. Huacachinans mean business.


Our hotel. Charming. I would love to go back. Freshly blended smoothies in the morning, a cool pool, a working shower, a pet macaw, a bumpin' restaurant—all backing up to a monstrous sand dune. Lovely.

I mentioned dunes—picture the Sahara desert. And Huacachina has capitalized on this sprawling sea of sand. The town comes alive at 5 p.m. with the rip-roar of V-8 engine dune buggies, equipped with roll cages. You drive to the edge of town, pay a buck in taxes, and the driver FLYS up the side of the dune and off into no-man's land.

The tourists are all strapped in with full-body harnesses. Our driver didn't buckle his once—and he was wearing flip flops. WE CAUGHT AIR. I don't think you could find a rollercoaster that could rival the ride we had—two solid hours of fun for $15.

They stop in a scenic spot for pictures.


Then stop again atop multiple peaks for sandboarding. It was almost incomparable to snowboarding. We all had sand in every crevice by the end. It's a free-for-all out there, with 20 or so buggies buzzing around, all of them convening together at the top of each peak. With all the tourists careening down the hill on boards at once, a couple people almost got taken out. It was pretty wild. Going on your stomach, we found, is the preferred way to ride the board, and we had a few belly-skiing races.


The passengers in our buggy. At center is our driver, Rufino—which also sounds like Rufio, which naturally led to us chanting lines from Hook: "Rufio, Rufio, RU-FI-O!" To our delight, Rufino liked this and drove faster.

The ride ended with an unbeatable view of an indescribable sunset. Before retiring for the evening, we laughed until our abdominals were pained over ice cream (I was tempted to order the restaurant's 60-ounce milkshake—my family would understand. Really, who wouldn't be?)

The next day, we trecked it back up to Ica, the three of us riding in the back of one of these little moto-taxis, packed like sardines. It made for a slow go uphill. All the motos are emblazoned with handpainted Reebok, Nike, or Puma insignia. As you can see, our driver was part of the Reebok team.

He took us to Ica's museum, where we saw the Nasca mummies that were featured in the March National Geographic. We also saw trophy heads—the lips were sealed with two small stakes driven through the lips—and the purposely deformed skulls of the Nasca elite. We didn't make it to the Nasca lines . . . maybe on our next Peruvian adventure.