By: Bound2explore May 16, 2019

Every time you see a desert, don’t you dream of an oasis? Did you know that Peru has the one and only oasis in South America? This beautiful oasis is located in Huacachina, Peru. If you love adventure, an adventurous day trip to Huacachina, Peru is a must do.

Imagine the rush you will feel through your vein when you ride a buggy at high speed up and down the sand dunes or when you do a sand boarding. Whether it is your first time or your third time, sand boarding will always give you a thrill to remember. But the best of all is at the end of your adventurous day trip to Huacachina, Peru, when you catch a stunning view of the oasis and the town below you from the top of sand dunes, and I guarantee you this is not a fata morgana. This jaw dropping view is real as it can be.

If you crave for an adventure and want to explore Peru to the fullest, here’s an itinerary on how to enjoy adventurous day trip to Huacachina, Peru.

You can easily drive to Huacachina from Lima by renting a car. The highway is easy to navigate. Unlike in Mexico, you won’t find any unsuspected speedbumps on the middle of the highway. Or you can take a hop on hop off bus to Huacachina with a stop at Paracas and Ballestas Island. Keep in mind, this is a long distance hop off hop on bus. One of few companies who offers the service to Huacachina is Peru Hop. You can easily book the ride on their website or over the phone. While I prefer exploring on my own,   sometimes it is better to take a hop on hop off bus that covers everything you want to see and you can take a nap during a long drive. Especially since the Peru Hop gives you free time to explore on your own.

Our day with Peru Hop started very early in the morning. Our pick-up spot was at our hotel in Miraflores. The first stop was Paracas. This sleepy fishing town is a gateway to visit Ballestas Island.  Our adventurous day trip to Huacachina started as we were dropped by the oasis. We took the opportunity of the free time to walk around and to grab an authentic Peruvian lunch at nearby restaurant overlooking the oasis.

From there, we walked and climbed the sand dunes to meet with our buggy driver. Unfortunately, we couldn’t pick the buggy or the driver since everything had been assigned to us. And here how our adventurous day trip to Huacachina, Peru turned into misadventure. In the middle of the ride after a fun time of sand boarding, our buggy suddenly stopped. It was not clear what the cause of a sudden stop. Maybe it was an engine failure or maybe the buggy had run out of the gas? We could only speculate. There’s no communication since the driver couldn’t speak English at all.  And I only know a few phrases in Spanish. So we waited and waited for other driver to pick us up. The day started to get dark.

Finally a new driver arrived to pick us up.  So we thought we were safe, but a new driver didn’t wait for all passengers to buckle up, and he didn’t even bother to check the seatbelt before he drove. Lucky for me I grabbed the seatbelt quickly while telling him to stop which he didn’t stop. But one of the passengers almost flew out of the buggy since he hadn’t had a chance to put on the seatbelt. As you can imagine, this is not your regular ride. The buggy went really fast up and down the sand dunes. Worry about the other passenger, with my very limited Spanish, I yelled at the driver to stop. He finally stopped and gave a chance to the other passengers to put on their seatbelt. I was glad that everyone made it safely to the end of the ride. If he didn’t stop we might had a different ending.

As the night approaching, we were dropped back at the same spot where we met the buggy driver. Last chance to enjoy the sand dune. As I sat there on the sand dunes, I thought how important it is to learn a local language even only a few phrases when you visit a foreign country. Because you never know when the situation arise when you really need to communicate with the local.

 All in all, I bet the eight people in that buggy had a ride of their lifetime. At the end, a jaw dropping view of an oasis after the sunset made an adventurous day trip to Huacachina, Peru was totally worth it despite a little mishap.

As always, all opinions are my own. Thank you so much to Peru Hop for their generosity.