Day 2 - Down the coast to the vast sand dunes of Huacachina and crazy dune buggying n boarding!
 
After an early breakfast we bundled the bags into our min van then headed for the local bus station! A slight fear on my part as to what lay ahead but thankfully we had allocated seats and the windows opened so I was happy!! Heading out of Lima was a sad sight to say the least, the poverty within Peru was worse than we expected and as we headed following the coast, the harshness of the dry desert landscape and falling apart shacks for homes across the valley was a sorry sight to see .... It reminded us so much of the border journey in Cambodia and time in Africa, such a hard life the locals lead here to survive, bin liners making up roofs, nothing but a small one room shack and no electricity/facilities in sight, incredibly harsh. I think because we had come from such a lush green country, the landscape really hit us here and I had no idea that Peru was so dry and barren, I was totally surprised. Passing a huge Christ statue on a mountain hill and patterns etched within the mountainside, we followed the coast passing more unpopulated vast mountain desert areas and remote shacks dotted about. At times green cropped fields would appear but soon this would disappear replaced by more harshness....
 
After about 5 hours and a couple of dodgy movies, we ended up at our destination and surprisingly it was boiling!! Bundling into more taxis we headed for the small oasis village of Huacachina, our destination hotel was like paradise, a pool, beautiful wooden finished rooms, mountain sand dunes looming all around us and a few bright green parrots perched around saying 'Hola'! This was heaven . A slow sandwich later we were then ready for the big treat of the day dune buggying and boarding!! Basically some crazy local fella zooms you up and over the sand dunes in these big buggy things at god knows what speed and then sets you off down the steep gradients on snowboards flying down the sand dunes below.....mad but we were excited! Well not sure about mum...
 
We set off engines roaring, guns blazing and soon we were bombing up and down along the vast sand dunes holding on for dear life, like being on some kind of white knuckle roller coaster ride without the safety of the metal rails for the wheels to hold onto, it was just like a the big dipper or black hole of Alton Towers, many screams and a few swear words were heard from all, it was just wicked! We drove up 70metre steep gradients of about 80 degrees at some points, then hovered on the top seeing the same descent the other side, it was bl**dy scary to say the least!! How the buggy didn't tip and throw us all out I will never know it was just mad, many a time I thought my stomach was in my mouth so to speak it was hair raising stuff! Our driver then stopped at many high dunes for us to attempt to sand board down on 'ski like snow boards.' Ads and Ian attempted the standing version first where Ads totally managed to wipe out, whereas mum and I and most of the group went full throttle forward on our stomachs! It was pretty exhilarating and a tad scary bombing down some 80 degree steep gradient into the valley below and at the end almost every orifice in your body had sand in it!
 
The scenery around was just stunning, high peak yellow sand dunes for miles on end looking down on the oasis of the village which consisted of a lagoon surrounded by palm trees and all that can be described as frigging big dunes! We then got back on the buggy (to mums delight who now due to her men ears problem was as white as a sheet and feeling a tad sick!) and raced over the dunes and peak edges some more, attempting even higher dunes to board down then climbing back up which was just as hard as going down! It was such fun and the whole group was cheering each other on and laughing whilst a few, mainly Adam had more wipe outs! Then we reached the edge of the dune and chilled on the sand ridge taking mad group photos and watching the sunset over the sand valley, it was just beautiful and such a top start to the trip, could this get any better?!!
 
That eve after a few hours of darkness with no electricity we had some rather large beers to celebrate a wicked day with some top pasta all ready for our island expedition the next day!