Huacachina looks like what you get when you ask a child to draw an oasis, but
you make the sand dunes taller and add restaurants and hotels all the way
around the water in the center. It’s amazingly surreal. The dunes are 100s of
meters tall, and as a result the main activities are dune buggy tours and sand
boarding.
Unfortunately I wasn’t feeling well, so while Danielle went off to do those
awesome things, I laid down in our hotel room, which did have a view of the
sand dunes, and also air conditioning. Overnight the air conditioning would
drip enough water that it ran around the outdoor walkway, and back under our
door to make a little puddle in our room. I believe that is what referred to as
the water cycle.
Despite not feeling well, I did walk up some sand dunes a little bit, but I
sadly did not have the energy to make it to the top. The next day we continued
on the bus, which took us to a Pisco factory. Basically Pisco is what you get
when you distill fermented grapes. The tour was short, but it was kind of neat
to see the basic facilities and contrast them with a whiskey tour we took in
Seattle a few months back. Locals enjoy a wine made here that tastes slightly
sweeter than cough syrup, but Pisco straight up it is quite good. (No tour
guide anywhere in Peru will fail to mention Pisco, or the fact that the Pisco
made in Peru is the original and what’s made in Chili is a reproduction.)
