Huacachina, Peru

“We live in a wonderful world full of beauty, charm, and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.”

Jawaharial Nehru

Lima

I embarked on a solo trip around the world, and as thrilling as that was and helped me grow as a person, etc, etc, I would still frequently get homesick and lonely. The hardest parts were meeting people, hanging out with them for a few days, and then having to say good-bye. The good-byes were always the worst, but I would always try to reassure myself that one day I’ll meet my new fiends again somewhere in the world. 

So when my friends and family met up with me along my travels, I would get very excited and this helped bring some of home to wherever I was at the moment. After Chile, I flew to the capital of Peru, Lima, to meet my friends Margo and Abi.

I have traveled with Margo numerous times over the past several years, and she has been all over the world herself. She has always been my inspiration for taking on the world and risks when it comes to seeing new countries. At this point, she has probably still been to more nations than me, but one day I’ll get there.

The three of us traveled around Peru for about 10 days, but they were very packed busy days so we could maximize seeing the most of the country. The main way we were able to do so much in such a short period of time was the Peru Hop bus.

This is a hop-on hop-off bus that takes travelers to all of the major touristy cities of Peru, starting in Lima and ending all the way in Cusco. Everything is incredibly organized and planned down to the minute with this efficient bus service. They even had partnerships with various hostels, hotels, and activities in each city we hopped off to give us more savings. If you are short on time (and money), and want to see as much of Peru as possible, I highly recommend Peru Hop!

We began our adventure in Lima, the capital of Peru. We had one full day here, so we just walked around looking at some coastal viewpoints, tasting Peruvian food and drinks, marveling at ancient ruins, and doing a walking tour.

While we were in Lima, the finals in a major soccer tournament, Copa America, were taking place; Peru versus Brazil. Everywhere we went that afternoon, we could see crowds of people gathered around televisions in shops and restaurants, intently watching the game. Unfortunately, Peru lost, so the city was somber that night.

Ballestas Islands

The downside of Peru Hop is that the buses depart pretty early in the mornings on each day to maximize time in each town. We were on the bus by 6AM the next morning, on a journey to the town of Paracas, Peru.

Here, the main activity was a boat tour to Las Islas Ballestas. It took us over 30 minutes on the boat to get to the islands, which are uninhabited by humans except those on the research facility.

With minimal humans around, the mossy, rocky islands are completely covered in birds, seals, crabs, and even a few penguins! I have never seen so many birds in one place before. You could definitely smell them, even if you couldn’t see them!

I was amazed watching them fly around in such large flocks. From a distance, we could see a couple penguins waddling about, and they were absolutely adorable. The research facility on these islands actually studies and uses the bird droppings as exported industrial fertilizer.

Huacachina

After the boat tour, we hopped back on the bus, and drove to the tiny town of Huacachina. This town is a little oasis in the desert. It is surrounded by mountainous sand dunes, and there is a small lake in the town center. Surrounding the lake are hostels, hotels, restaurants, and bars.

This town is known for sand boarding and partying. There really is nothing else to do there, but boy does it get a lot of visitors for these reasons.

As soon as we arrived, we were quickly shuffled to our accommodation where we dropped our bags off and then went back to the meeting point in town to be separated into groups for a trip to the sand dunes. We were split up into groups of 7 for each dune buggy, which we then rode into the desert, and what a hoot!

The drivers love to drive fast and do sharp turns to add to the excitement, and it is incredibly bumpy. You couldn’t really have any loose clothing on you as it would fly off.

We stopped at a few viewpoints up on the dunes to take pictures and the sights were amazing. Just enormous sand mountains all around us, stretching for hundreds of miles! I had never been to any sand dunes before, and I was mesmerized. It was breathtaking, and the experience definitely makes my top 10 moments of “awe” I’ve felt in my life.

We were each given a sand board, shown how to ride it and then we had to go down the dunes. Nobody wanted to go first and we were all afraid. But finally, after riding down the first time, we realized it wasn’t as scary as we expected. These were boards that we had to lay on, no standing.

It is also very easy to control your speed as you just drag your feet behind more to go slower. We rode several hills until we got to a large sand dune. This was the big one, and I wanted to go as fast as possible. I almost lost control on this one, but made it down in one piece just fine. We finished the sand dune trip by watching the sunset while in the desert. I couldn’t have asked for a more joyous day.

Despite how small Huacachina is, this was one of my favorite cities in Peru and possibly the world, mainly due to the escapades on the sand dunes. We live on a pretty phenomenal planet and nothing beats all the different habitats and environments 🙂

-Anastasia