We are spending the last few days of our month long journey at the seaside town of Paracas. We didn’t have much planned for our time here, but that’s exactly what we wanted to do. Huacachina, an “oasis town” is not too far from here and we had hoped to make a visit there one day. Most of our tours we booked ahead of time, most often through Trip Advisor. But, we couldn’t find any tours from Paracas to Huacachina; they were all from Lima. So, we decided to do that upon arrival.
This tiny little tourist hub is a few blocks worth of a boardwalk where the store fronts alternate between souvenir store and tour company. We had not seen Huacachina advertised on many signs, but when we mentioned it to one of the many people who stopped us on the street, he brought us into his office to tell us more. Jimmy was a charmer who learned our names immediately. He said he had a tour leaving at noon the next day that would include transportation there, a city tour with wine and pisco tasting, then dune buggy and sand boarding on the sand dunes. We saw photos of what we’d see. He said he had six people signed up and he showed us a photo of his minibus. Now, we’ve been spoiled with personal tours lately, but six others sounded like a perfect size. He said that the cost covered everything and that we wouldn’t pay for anything all day. We clarified that the tour was in English, and he said, “of course, I’ll take very good care of you.” Oh, Jimmy.
His credit card machine was broken, and we didn’t quite have enough soles, but also didn’t want to make another withdrawal. We scraped together enough of our American cash we had stored away and he accepted that. We thought it was a tad expensive, but shopping around and bargaining are not skills that we have yet become skilled at.
We arrived at his office at noon the next day, and he said it would be about fifteen more minutes, so we browsed the stalls for a few minutes and returned to his office where we sat and waited for a little while longer. Then, in a flurry of excitement, he said it was time to go. Where were the other six people? Where was the minibus he had shown us photos of? Oh, Jimmy. We darted across the road to a larger bus, Jimmy asked the name of the young man that got off the bus, and then said, “Misael will take good care of you.” Just to clarify, that means Jimmy was not going with us, nor did he even know this young man whom he said would take care of us not were we going in the minibus he had shown us photos of. Oh, Jimmy.
We were the last two people to board the packed bus, which meant we had to squeeze into seats apart from one another. And there were about 35 people, not 6.
The journey was meant to take an hour and a half. At about an hour in, the bus stopped on the side of the road and Misael said, “Yessica and Rebecca.” Sweet Misael could definitely speak more English than I could Spanish, but he was not the fluent English guide Jimmy had promised us. Even though no other names were called, two girls from Switzerland and a couple from France who seemed to have their own guide/translator got off the bus with us. It was here that we had a brief introduction to pisco production and a tasting. Our guide at the distillery spoke incredible English, but he spoke it so quickly with a beautiful accent, that I missed half of what he said. Pisco is the local alcohol. It is made of grapes and has a alcohol content of 42%. It was reminiscent of rubbing alcohol. But the creams, sort of like Bailey’s were much easier to swallow and quite tasty. But no, I’m not coming home with any.
Misael said we could have some free time or eat lunch after the tasting. Normally, we would vote for free time. But free time just meant in the distillery and the gift shop. So, we opted for lunch. It was fine, nothing special, but fine. Then, our bus reappeared, without any of the other people on it. We were confused all afternoon. Where did the other people go? Were we to meet up later? And why weren’t we in the oasis town? It was our impression that the pisco tasting and city tour were in Huacachina. Oh, Jimmy.
The bus driver took us through the busy, hectic streets of Ica to a small park, the Witches’ Park. Here, Misael ran off and found an official looking woman with a vest on who gave us a tour of the small park, in Spanish. Thankfully, the French guide translated some for us, but I can’t really tell you what I got out of it except for there was a park with some statues to different witches. Did Misael translate at all? Was he with us the whole time? No. Then, the tour, about ten minutes long ended with, “And now you tip her.” What about the no other costs for the day? Oh, Jimmy.
By this point in our excursion, we were using a fair amount of other words alongside Jimmy’s name.
Finally, our bus took us to Huacachina! It is a teeny-tiny town with a permanent population of about 100 people that welcomes tourists with restaurants, hostels and gift shops. The town grew because of the natural lagoon there in the middle of large sand dunes. Legend has it that the waters and mud have restorative powers. We didn’t try, so I can’t report on the accuracy of this claim.
Misael walked us to a small office and told us to return promptly at 4:50 for our dune buggy ride. That gave us about 30 minutes to wander the town. It was adorable, and I think we saw the whole thing twice in that time.
We made our way back to the office to find the Swiss and French duos, but no Misael. Spoiler alert: we never saw Misael again. Was that what was supposed to happen? Did something happen? No clue. Another group of people stood close by, but they had not been on our bus earlier (where were all of those people?). At about 5:10, I finally wandered into the small office to find a bathroom. It was at this time that a guide (not Misael) came to lead us to the dune buggies. Even though all the instructions he gave were in Spanish, Jess was able to ask him to wait until I returned.
We were moved quickly to a long line where we had to pay to enter the sand dunes (Oh, Jimmy). Our guide, this new guide, mind you, who spoke Spanish, and we’d never seen before, took off up the dunes (which is no easy task), and we followed him as best we could, sticking close to the amazing young Swiss women who spoke multiple languages fluently and we knew were also returning to Paracas.
We piled into a dune buggy and here was where the fun part, the happy ending starts to play out. We were all strapped in, about twelve of us, like a roller coaster with straps over both shoulders and around our waists. The driver took off. It was unlike any roller coaster I’ve ever been on because, it was on sand and the driver could turn any direction he chose, fly down steep hills or go sideways on a dune at high speeds. We were full of squeals, laughs and screams as he flew through the air. Then, we stopped to watch the sunset. It was a glorious view of the sun peaking over the tops of the dunes with no man made structure in sight.
Then, we were offered the opportunity to snowboard, or sandboard, I should say. Not a skier in any sense of the word, I thought, “Sure, why not?” Then, our driver showed us the peak we’d go down. I do teach angles in my classroom and while it wasn’t a perfect right angle down, I’d say it was at least a steep 75 degree angle straight down. My answer quickly turned to no. Then, several others in our group started going down, on their stomachs, using their feet in the sand as breaks. Jess got up the nerve to go, and assured me it wasn’t too fast, so I went for it. It was very fun, and with my feet buried in the sand, I was never out of control. The only difficult part was climbing back up in the sand. It was that process that kept me from doing it a second time!
We strapped back in and the driver took off even more full force than before. There was no holding back. We climbed steep hills only to plummet straight down on the other side. What a thrill!
Afterward, we made our way back to the bus with the few other travelers we had come to know throughout the day. Still there was no one else on the bus (where did they go?) and no more Misael. We never asked the others what they paid for this excursion, knowing that hearing their number would probably only cause us pain. But, our bus driver returned us safely and soundly to Paracas, and we just hope we don’t run into Jimmy again over the next few days of our stay! Oh, Jimmy.
Wow 😮 what an adventure!
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