Huacachina is a small town just outside of Ica, a larger city located in the Peruvian desert. Huacachina is situated around an oasis with large sand dunes surrounding the city. We spent four nights here, which is a long time compared to most who visit, but we wanted some time to relax and enjoy the atmosphere before moving on.

The oasis of Huacachina is located in the middle of the Peruvian desert and is surrounded by large sand dunes.

The City
Huacachina is situated in a U-shape around the lagoon, with one side left ‘open’ to the sand dunes. Small row boats and paddleboats were available to those who wanted to spend some time on the water, although we were too hot in the desert sun to partake in that activity. During the heat of the day, we would spend time in our hostel room, kept cool by the brick walls, and work on our journals and blog, read, and relax. Each evening, we would venture out to try a different restaurant, taking advantage of happy hour 2-for-1 specials on Pisco Sour and sampling the cuisine. From a Chinese-influenced chicken fried rice to American-style pizza to traditional Peruvian lomo saltado, we enjoyed every meal that we ate while sitting at tables around the lagoon.

While we know pizza is not a traditional Peruvian dish, Jon was still pretty excited to have it for dinner one night!

Dune Buggy and Sandboarding Tour
The primary purpose for visiting Huacachina, at least for most adventurers, is to take a dune buggy ride and go sandboarding. We were no exception and signed up for a tour through our hostel. Loaded into the dune buggy with seven other tourists and one Peruvian driver, we departed the city and started the steep climb up the dunes. The ride was like a rollarcoaster, filled with dips, twists, screams, and laughter. Our driver was a professional, knowing exactly when to slow down so that we wouldn’t tip, but also when to speed up to hear us shout.

Jon standing next to our dune buggy that tossed us around the mountains of sand!

Pulling to a stop at the top of a dune, he got out sandboards for those who wanted to try. While I elected to stay back with the driver and help take pictures, Jon eagerly reached for a board and was the first person to go down our ‘practice hill.’ Everybody had the opportunity to go down three or four times however they wanted. A couple French guys tried to stand up sandboard at first, but quickly realized that it was too difficult and was a lot more fun to either sit or lay down on the board. Having to walk back up the dune after each run was tiring but the look on Jon’s face was worth it – he was having a great time! Finally on to the ‘real’ dune, he laid on his stomach on the board and took off for a long slide down the sand, cresting over three different hills within the dune before reaching the bottom.

Jon was eager and ready to try sandboarding…

…although it ended up more like sand-sledding, he had a great time!

After shaking out all the sand from our clothes, we all piled back into the dune buggy for more thrills as we made our way to watch the sunset overlooking the oasis. A handful of other groups were stopped in the same area and people from town had climbed the dune on their own to watch the sun descend. It was a beautiful sunset and the location provided great views over the city. While a bit scary for me at times, the two hours we spent on the sand was an adrenaline-filled experience that we were happy we did.

We spent some time at the end of our dune buggy tour hanging out on the sand dune overlooking the town and watching the sunset.

Wine Tasting
After hearing that there were vineyards and wineries in nearby Ica, I knew that I wanted to spend a couple of hours tasting some Peruvian wine. We had not encountered much wine so far in Peru; most came from Chile and Argentina. Having a private driver to navigate the narrow streets, he led us to two different wineries to learn about and taste wine and pisco.

These earthenware bottles are used in place of wooden barrels to age and store the wine and pisco in Peru.

The first winery was called Bodega Lazo and is a small establishment with a handful of employees. Their aging and tasting room was covered with artifacts from the Paracas culture and full of earthenware bottles used to age the wine. Our guide, who spoke a little bit of English, led us around the rooms and used a bamboo stick to extract wine from the barrels. We tasted a few reds, a white, and two varieties of pisco. The reds were much sweeter than we are used to and the pisco burned going down! After purchasing a small bottle of red to take with us, we walked around the yard filled with equipment used to make the wine.

This is how they gave us tastes of the different wine at Bodega Lazo – straight from the bottle via a bamboo stick!

The second winery that we visited was called El Catador and is a larger, more commercial company. Our guide spoke excellent English and made jokes with us throughout our tour. Here, we learned how the Peruvians used to carry the bottles around, what the different markings represent, and why they love such sweet wine (they grew up with it!). We sat in an official tasting room where he showed us the proper way to drink pisco so that it didn’t taste like fire and let us try a cream-based pisco drink made with lucuma, their national fruit (which we bought to drink that evening).

We tried a handful of different wines and pisco at El Catador, eventually buying a bottle of the cream-based lucuma-flavored pisco.

Summary
We really liked our time in Huacachina, which provided us enough time to rest and relax as well as a couple activities to keep us from getting bored. The sandboarding was a highlight for Jon and I loved learning about wine-making in a different country. While we both enjoyed our time in Huacachina, we were ready to leave after four days and make our way to the next city. It’s a nice place for a short break and makes a good stop-over if you are traveling from Lima to the south of the country, although probably not ideal for a longer-term stay.

Different varieties of palm trees surrounded the lagoon and boats were available for those who wanted to spend time out on the water.