A day trip we’ll never forget – ocean, wildlife, boat trips, desert oasis, dune buggies, sand-boarding, sunsets – that’s what awaited us in Paracas and Huacachina.
We started our day at 3:45am with alarms ringing and bodies frantically attempting to put the right foot into the right trouser leg. Day bags at the ready, we blearily made our way outside to catch our coach at 4:20am. It’s a 4 hour drive down to Paracas, on the western coast of Peru, but we also had to take into account that this weekend is a public holiday here, so traffic was heavy.
Our tour guide, Amyth, was lovely and gave us lots of local information, which we tried to take in – tricky to do on very little sleep, lack of caffeine, and the fact that she spoke both Spanish and English very speedily and woven together. However, we gathered enough to know where we were going and soon were off on our ocean adventure.
The islands around here are stunning, and date back to the Jurassic period. We visited Islas Ballestas – a collection of small islands known for their colonies of cormorants, tern, boobys, pelicans, penguins and sea lions.
We were very excited that we would get to see one of the Nazca lines on our trip. The Nazca Lines are a series of ancient geoglyphs etched into the desert, best viewed from the air, but we still got a pretty good view from a boat…
The purpose and creation of the Nazca lines is still unknown, we love an unsolved mystery!
Despite it being the wrong season, we were lucky enough to see a few Humboldt penguins, including this parent and chick…
Then we rounded the corner of an island and were treated to loads of sea lions…
The whole trip was incredible, we saw loads of wildlife and even spotted a whale in the distance!
Once back on land, we had some (nothing to write home about) buffet lunch and then it was time to get back on the coach ready for the drive to Huacachina.
Huacachina is a town built up around a desert oasis, just west of the city of Ica.
The first thing we noticed when we arrived was the heat – far hotter than we’d been in Paracas or Lima.
But we weren’t just here for the pretty desert views and the oasis. We were here for the adrenaline high… dune-buggy riding and sand boarding here we come!
The dune buggy was incredible!! Our driver drove like a man on a mission… skipping past other slower buggies and really giving us a thrill. It was amazing… too hard to capture and mostly we just enjoyed the ride(s), but Martin managed to take this video to try and show what it was like.
In the middle of the dune-buggy-ing, we stopped to do some sand boarding. Several of us were nervous and thought we couldn’t do it… but we all did! And it was wild!
Here are the videos of Sylvie going down the first dune, and Elijah going down the second one…
After the sand-boarding, we were back in the buggies for another speedy rollercoaster ride to a spot to watch the sunset. Just beautiful.
All too soon our driver called us over for our last ride back to the oasis… but he did make it the best one – ending in a ride down the biggest dune of all and a doughnut-wheelie to park! Legend.
All that was left then was to grab some food and snacks, find Amyth and the rest of our coach pals and get back. Festival festivities were in full swing meaning traffic was crazy and it took us 5 hours to get back to Lima! We eventually crawled in to our apartment at 12:30am – still needing to shower off all the sand and pack our bags for our flight on Sunday morning! Bed by 1:30am and alarms set for 6:15am, let’s go.
Coyle Family Adventures 