Riding the Sands of Adventure: Discovering the Thrills of Sand Boarding in Beautiful Huacachina!

One of the many draws of travel for us is the unknown.  The world has so many unique destinations, sites and experiences just waiting to be discovered.  When we’re traveling the thrill of discovering something new is a constant and never gets old.  Our next experience was no exception.  

Located in southwest Peru, about 45 miles south of Lima, is a small desert island town surrounded by sand dunes that can reach 1,600 feet in height.  This town has a lake In the middle and is surrounded by restaurants, bars, shops renting sandboards and selling dune buggy adventures.  The town is called Huacachina.  

More than once we marveled at how a place like this exists.  What keeps the sand from burying the town.  Are there sand avalanches?  What happens when it gets really windy here?  It boggled our mind.  It still does. 

We already had a dune buggy excursion booked when our bus pulled into Huacachina.  We hurriedly dropped off our bags at our hostel and walked to the meeting point.  There was a group of twenty or so of us that signed up for this adventure. Our tour guide divided us up into five groups of six.  We were paired with the older crowd. We were all in for a surprise.

We huffed and puffed as we trudged up a steep mountain of sand to where the dune buggies were waiting for us.  Tons of them.  Looked like something out of ‘Mad Max’.  We found our buggy.  None of us had any idea what we’d signed up for.   Lindsey and I sat in the very front.  Our driver spoke about as much English as I spoke Spanish.  Poquito.  But he did know how to make sure our seat belts were fastened.  After revving the engine (sounded like an aircraft engine) for the first time and making the sign of the cross (this can’t be good) we were off. 

The engine roared with fury as we sped across the sand dunes.  Things we didn’t think a machine could do, this one did.  We leapt off sand dunes.  Plummeted down hills of sand that should have flipped us over. Went around turns that we’d only experienced onlyat amusement parks.  It was terrifying at first, but then the sense of adventure overtook us.  Awesome!  These types of experiences are why we travel. 

The other part of our tour included sandboarding.  Yes, it’s like snowboarding except you are on sand and you go down the dunes on you belly. What could go wrong?  To get us acclimated, they started us on the small dunes first.  Although it didn’t feel small.  Then, as you would expect, the dunes got incrementally steeper and longer.  We all successfully completed our runs without wrecking and getting a mouth full of sand. 

Just as we were feeling good about ourselves, there was one more sand dune.  Of course there was.   The big one.  But we all chickened out and opted to watch the others. So, our driver drove us to the spectator section.  Our pride was all a little bit hurt.

 As we watched, some of us started to second guess our decision.  If they can do it, so can we.  So a handful of us convinced the driver to take us up.  We were going to do this.  

As we approached the top of the dune, a little fear and anxiety crept in.  It always feels higher at the top than the bottom.  Our driver dropped us off.  We grabbed our boards.  The driver applied some wax to the boards and directed us where to go.  We were on our own.  

I carefully walked across the ridge of the dune.  “Don’t let me tumble down this dune before I even get the chance to sand board”, I thought.  The others went first.  Then it was just a man, his sand board and a lot of damn sand below. 

I positioned myself on the board and then pushed off.  The board and I took off like a bullet.  Remembering that day’s prior lessons, I managed to stay on the board and complete the run.  It was exhilarating.  This time it took longer to reach the bottom and I went a heck of a lot faster.  But I did it and I didn’t wind up with a mouth full of sand.  Success! Fears faced!

We spent that night in a great hostel in Huacachina. The next morning as we headed out to leave, we once again admired the beauty of this town. Surrounded by beautiful sand dunes, we were grateful to have discovered Huacachina, the opportunity to both spend a night here and for the memories etched in our minds from our time in the dunes.