Huacachina, an oasis in Peru

Though I had visited many desert locations, I had not yet seen an oasis. When planning the trip to Peru, I came across few nice photos of Huacachina oasis. It was mesmerising and I decided to include it in my itinerary. Huacachina was on the way from Lima to Cusco and hence it was very easy to include it in my plan.

About Huacachina

Huacachina (Spoken as “wakachina”) is a village built around a small oasis surrounded by huge sanddunes. It is just a short distance from the big city of Ica in Peru. While the village has about 100 permanent inhabitants, thousands of people visit this place each day.

My first impression

Huacachina was about 1.5 hours of drive from Paracas. It was Saturday and with lot of tourists around, the small place looked congested and dusty. I started appreciating the place when the day trippers moved out and the village was very beautiful in the night and in the mornings.

Dune buggy and sand boarding

This is the main attraction of Huacachina. The huge sand dunes surrounding the village provides an opportunity to conduct dune buggy and sand boarding. The tours normally start at 4PM and lasts for 2 hours ending with sunset. I must say that it was a great experience.

A vehicle designed to ride on sand, it can hold about 10 people. The area around the start of the tour was very crowded and I was wondering whether it made sense to come to this tour. But once out of Huacachina village, the real size of dunes came into picture and the vehicles were far away from each other.

On Dune buggy

It was a complete roller coaster ride on Dune buggy, which went through the slopes I never thought could be driven on a vehicle. It was hard to take videos due to extreme movement of the vehicle. I did not wanted to drop my mobile for the sake of video!! Device like GoPro would have helped. Nevertheless, the experience was simply mind blowing.

Sand boarding

After the thrilling experience on Dune buggy, it was time for sand boarding. I had seen snowboarding until then but the sand boarding experience was something new. Basically you need to lie down on your belly on the sand board and slide down. Legs can be used to control the speed.

It took quite some courage for all us for the first time to sand board down the dune. But it was completely safe as long as we did not do any silly mistakes. The speed at which it came down was astonishing!!

We tried on different dunes and each time the driver ensured that the slope of the dune increased!! This created a new experience each time we came down the dune.

Sunset time

The tour ended with the short stop to view sunset and to take photographs of the oasis.

If you are not interested in Dune buggy or sand boarding, then you can climb over the dunes around the village to see some nice views. This can be done either in the evening or morning as the area gets hot during day time.

Last words

• Huacachina is also a great place for people who like to party. Parties run for the whole night in the places like Wind Rover hotel. If you want silence place to sleep, then ensure that the hotel is peaceful during the night before booking (which I did!!).
• Food for vegetarians is not an issue as many restaurants serve vegetarian food.
• Huacachina can be combined with Paracas for the day trip from Lima. It will be a long day with early departure and late arrival in Lima. But staying a night in Huacachina will give a different perspective of the place.