Daily Archives: June 8, 2012

Sliding on sand

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This pose lasted one second!


Just outside Ica, set amid the towering sand dunes is the oasis of Huacachina, a small lake surrounded by a scattering of colonial buildings – and lots and lots of backpackers. Apparently this once used to be an sophisticated peaceful escape from the city; now it’s been overrun by foreigners hell-bent on hedonism and adventure tourism, but it was fun for one night at least.

We joined a tour that was more of a mobile rollercoaster on sand, a dune buggy tearing its way up, around and over the dunes, with near-vertical drops down the other side that made me glad there was a roll cage and we were well strapped in! As the powerful engine roars and you fly up another sand ridge with the adrenaline kicking in, you can’t help but wonder about the poor creatures who once made this place their home – it’s some contrast to the idyll we found on camelback in the Rajistani Desert in India, and it’s pretty clear the local environment has suffered at the cost of tourism.

Our dune buggy. Yes, it did look cool!

The other sport in town is sandboarding. It seems the encouraged way for beginners to get to the bottom is to lie front-first on their board and slide and scream your way to the bottom, using your feet as breaks. It turns out you can go pretty fast; there’s something a little odd about hurtling down a mountain of sand with your face inches from the surface, but it was certainly cool, if that’s an appropriate word. We also had a go at sandboarding proper – standing up, sticking your ass out and attempting to balance. Definitely harder! I found the best technique was just to point the board down the slope and go for it – if it was on snow, you’d go way too fast, but the sand slows you down enough that the maximum speed is just about right. Great fun!

Simon

Flying on the ground

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It was like flying


We’ve tried to avoid flying as much as we can on this trip, doing everything overland where possible. So we were a little surprised at our experience with the buses here in Peru.

We arrived at the bus terminal to be directed to a ‘check in desk’, where after confirming tickets and passports, they take your luggage, weigh it and tag it, and attach the luggage receipt to your ticket. It’s an odd experience having to trust the luggage will be making its own way onto the bus – not something we felt entirely comfortable since this wasn’t actually an airport!

But not just an ordinary bus...


You then queue to enter the departure lounge, where they search you and your hand luggage (for what, we’re not quite sure), and use one of those funky wand things to check for metal or guns or something. In the lounge itself (alas, no duty free) are comfy seats, and a queue building at the departure gate – no sign of Ryanair style priority boarding yet though!

The team on the bus, excited at our free headphones and pillows!


On the bus itself, the surreal experience continues. Someone comes past with a video camera to film the face of everyone in each seat for security reasons. The seats have blankets, pillows and free headphones and recline to 160 degrees – and there’s food on board. We were slightly disappointed to find they don’t serve complimentary alcohol, but the in-flight game of bingo made up for it!

It should be said this was with the expensive bus company ‘Cruz del Sur’ – peruvian roads are notorious for crashes and we weren’t going to take our chances. However, there are definately some things National Express or Megabus could learn from this!

Simon

PS. Having written this, we just had the most confusing bus bingo ever. Laura thought she’d won, but we didn’t want to declare it since we don’t actually need a (non-transferrable) bus ticket back to Cuzco. Then it seems like half the bus went up to claim their prize to be told they hadn’t actually won yet, including an elderly woman who was asked to sing to us for entertainment while her numbers were checked. And then when there was an actual winner, two people rushed to claim the prize. You definately don’t get this kind of excitement on the buses back home!

Bingo!