Ica and Huacachina

ihana.com - big trip - diary - peru - august 2003

Tuesday 19 - Sunday 24 August

With B on his way to Iquitos, Tom and Magaly headed south to escape the clouds of Lima and find some sun. We first visited the coastal national park of Ica. I had been here before in 2001 but it had been foggy, this time the sun was out and we joined a boat trip around the rocky islands teeming with birds, seals and the odd penguin. The islands are still used by people who come and scrape up the guano (bird poo) which is one of the best fertilisers around. Afterwards we landied along the coastal desert until we arrived on top of cliffs overlooking the 'Cathedral', a natural rock arch carved by the waves with a tunnel through the cliffs beside it.

Its a couple of hours more to Huacachina, a desert oasis not far outside the town of Ica. The town is not particularly pretty but the oasis ten minutes outside is. There's a few hotels, restaurants and bars circling the greenish lake and imposing dunes surrounding it all.

We met up with a couple of M's friends from Lima and walked up to the top of the dune-mountain to watch the stars and try and get a glimpse of Mars which is the closest to our planet it will be for a long time. The red planet was clearly visible to our right as a huge bright pinkish star and we laid back on the dune and gazed up at the myriad of celestial bodies that I'd not seen since the beaches of Brazil. The conversation turned to UFOs and, right on cue, Magaly shouted that she could see one. Of course nobody would believe her but after a few attempts of scientifically pointing it out, 'three stars left and two up from the big one up there', we all saw it. Now I've not seen a UFO since the first one in Texas that we only realised what it was when the photo came out, a huge bright light just sitting there in the sky. This one was different, a tiny gold-coloured dot buzzing about like a fly round a light bulb. It continued to do the same random movements until a bank of cloud arrived and blotted it all out. We'd been stargazing so long that Mars was now well to our left.

The following morning we went for a ride on the dunes in a buggy, the landy having failed miserably the night before to drive up the slope out of the oasis. Fortunately it had been dark and nobody noticed the embarrassment that mud tyres, three tons and 70 wheezing horsepower can cause in sand.

No such embarrassment in the VW-powered ex desert racer buggy as we shot up the slope with the girls screaming in the back. We zoomed round corners using the dunes as berms, over vertical drops and down into steep gullies - top stuff. Stopping at the top of a big slope we donned our sand boards and slid down as the buggy drove around to collect us. Speeding back up the slope and barrelling round a dune berm there was a 'crack' familiar to jungle driving landy owners. The driveshaft had snapped, leaving us stranded in the baking heat of the desert. A quick check of supplies revealed no tools, half litre of water and a pack of cigarettes for the driver. He'd given his two-way radio and mobile phone to his mate at the oasis!

Never mind, another vehicle would be along soon enough - the drivers follow the same tracks. We waited in the heat, the urge to sandboard suddenly gone despite the excellent opportunity to get really good. Maybe the roasting sun had something to do with it.

After about half an hour we could hear the roar of a big engine coming and going as another vehicle flew around the dunes. We saw it approaching, a four wheel drive green truck with three rows of bench seats, open exhausts on each side venting the power of a 6 litre V8 - excellent, rescued by an even madder vehicle! We arranged it so that the truck would take us on the rest of the 'tour' and then come back for the buggy and tow it back to the oasis.

The truck wasn't as quick in the corners as the buggy but a fair bit faster in a straight line with an awesome soundtrack to match. We stopped by a dried out oasis where the water is now a few feet below the surface. There was a cobbled road leading to it from Ica, laid by convicts many years ago - hot work. We went back to get the buggy and towed it back, letting it fly into the air over the dune crests and giving the hapless driver a mouthful of sand at every opportunity.

Back at the landy the drivers had already spotted it and wanted to swap the green truck, something that was briefly tempting.

We headed back to Lima and began preparations for shipping the landy back to the UK.

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