Days 414 – 420: A desert oasis and a bout of altitude sickness

After two weeks of dormancy, it was time to hit the road again. Next stop was in the city of Ica, around 4 hours from Lima. The plan was to visit the nearby Huacachina, Peru’s “oasis in the desert” that is around 5 kilometers away from where we stopped.

Huacachina is a little village built around an oasis surrounded by sand dunes. After seeing countless advertisements and Instagram pictures, we were quite excited about visiting it, but to our dismay, this was one of those places that looked better in pictures than it does in person. For a place that sees tens of thousands of tourists every year, the village is shockingly unkempt and as filthy as rest of Peru that we had seen thus far.

That is not to say that we didn’t enjoy our time there because while we were having lunch at Arturo’s Tavern, we noticed a tour company next to the restaurant that was offering sandboarding and dune buggy tours so we decided to take a look. Safety was a major concern for us as we had read stories of reckless drivers, crashes, and poor safety protocols. Satisfied that we won’t face a tragic demise in the middle of a desert, we booked a tour for later that afternoon. It cost 47.20 PEN (~19 CAD) for the two of us.

After being strapped into the dune buggy with six other people, the driver revved his way through the dunes in true Mad Max fashion, taking us up, down, and even sideways through the desert roller-coasters. Yes, riding through the dunes was akin to riding the gut-churning amusement park attraction except that roller-coasters are less scary because you can see where you’re going. Undoubtedly, the driver was following a set route that he’s likely navigated a countless number of times, but his seemingly freestyle approach was at once exhilirating and a bit unsettling. Nonetheless, the driver was attentive to the passengers so we felt good with him behind the wheel.

Then it was time to get on the sandboard. The sandboards were actually old snowboards and we didn’t get to slide down the dunes standing; we laid on our bellies, head up and arms tucked. My sensitive eyes started to itch and water at the mere mention of this so I chickened out at first, but eventually put my big girl pants and sunglasses on, and decided not to miss out. Throughout the afternoon, we scaled three dunes with each steeper and longer than the next, and we had a lot of fun doing it. The tour ended in an absolutely perfect way with a view of the sunset over the oasis.

A few things to note for anyone thinking about visiting Huacachina and taking the tour:

1. Pare down your expectations for the village as it is nothing to write home about, but hang on to your excitement for the dunes because they are majestic
2. Sand will get EVERYWHERE so be especially careful with your cameras; we ended up getting a scratch right in the middle of our drone’s lens
3. Days can be warm, but as the sun sets, it can get quite chilly so prepare for it
4. Bring cash as many places around the village don’t accept card payments

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From Ica, we went to Nazca where we stopped for a night. Yes, this is the home of the mysterious Nazca Lines and no, we did not go see them. Not because we were not interested, but because the only way to see them is by air and, from our research, it meant taking a ridiculously short and expensive plane ride that does not allow enough time to see and process the geoglyphs properly, let alone take any pictures. Skip!

 

Over the rest of the week, we made our way towards Ollantaytambo, the closest town to Machu Picchu that we could get to with the bike. We stopped in Chalhuanca for a night and were to stop in Abancay for a night before getting to Ollantaytambo, but we got delayed by a day in Abancay due to me getting smacked with some altitude sickness.

Despite carrying pills for altitude sickness, we didn’t think to start taking them because we had been at high elevations since we entered South America and didn’t have any issues. But the reason is likely because our ascensions in the past had been gradual. We were at 154 meters for two weeks while in Lima, then went to 520 meters in Nazca, and then rapidly ascended to 2,888 meters in six hours when we went to Chalhuanca.

What started out as a mild headache progressed into a severe one, accompanied by me becoming a double-ended dragon (vomiting + diarrhea) for an entire day. We eliminated food as the cause because we ate the exact same dishes for the couple of days prior (we’re easy restaurant patrons) and Phil got away with only a mild headache. I had the best nurse by my side who, among countless other nursely tasks, brought me coca leaves and brewed endless cups of tea to help me get better.

It is thanks to Phil that I was able to ride to Ollantaytambo on Sunday. Had I not been able to travel, I’m not sure if we had been able to make it to Machu Picchu on Monday and we would have lost a lot of money from all the booking we did in advance. Needless to say, we were glad it didn’t come to that and I was glad to be able to eat again.