I moved to Peru: Dunes, an Oasis, and an Attempt at Sandboarding

So I have been away from Iquitos for about two weeks, and we just returned a few days ago. Coco was returning from his studies in Canada with the flight simulators and I met him in Lima. I can't tell you how many times we have met up with each other in airports. We had some time before he had to return to work and while all of my students were on vacation, so we decided to do a little traveling. And like a dork I forgot my camera charger so we had to take all our pics on Coco's cell phone. Sorry, they're not too clear.

During the first week we went to a place called Ica. It's a city located in the desert of southern Peru. It took us about 4 hours or so to arrive there by bus and the route to Ica took us along the coastline.

My sweet husband took several of these types of pictures of me while I slept on the bus. Thanks honey.

The city itself is surrounded by dunes. And they were breathtaking. I felt like I had gone all the way to Egypt because the dunes seemed taller than pyramids.

At the heart of these dunes is a tiny city called Huacachina, which is built around an oasis.

Our hotel was located in this little city and when we walked out the door of our room we could see a huge wall of a dune staring right at us from the back side of the hotel. That was so strange to me.

We had the chance to go for a wild ride in a dune buggy in search of great views of the dunes and spots to try out sandboarding. It felt like we were on a Disneyland ride. We were all strapped in and the scenery almost seemed unreal. I couldn't believe how fast the dune buggy would go and how we would fly up the walls of the dunes but never tip the buggy over. I screamed so much as we flew up and down the dunes, I loved it. It was like an extreme sand rollercoaster that lasted for two hours. Amazing.

I should have known that it was going to be an insanely wild ride when I saw this sticker on the front dashboard.

Not to toot my own horn or anything but I actually predicted that I would be somewhat good at sandboarding having grown up snowboarding and wakeboarding when I was younger. And I have always reeeeally wanted to try sandboarding.

But I'll be honest with you guys, I sucked at sandboarding. Really. I treated the board like a snowboard and the sand like snow, and none of those are actually alike. The sand board is just a thick piece of wood that makes it really difficult to turn or carve into the sand. And the sand itself is not as forgiving as snow or water. I officially don't have a future in sandboarding. So, in the end I became an expert in using the sandboard as a sled and flying down the dunes on my belly. Oh my goodness what a rush! It was so much fun. And when it was all over I found sand in places I didn't want to find sand, but it was totally worth it. Coco, on the other hand, was pretty good at sandboarding. Here he is going down the hill.

One night we had the chance to go to a Pisco Winery just outside of the city. The food and the Pisco were amazing and we were given a little tour of the property and told in detail the process of making Pisco. I would tell you what the process was if I could remember it now. But apparently in March everybody comes for the first grape stomping of the year and there is a huge celebration. I'd really like to see that.