100% YES!!!
Where is Huacachina?
Before visiting Huacachina, I had never seen sand dunes so vast, and this small desert oasis boasts some of the tallest dunes in South America. Huacachina is part of the Ica Desert and only a 15-minute drive from the town of Ica. Most people visiting Huacachina will choose to spend a night in the Oasis itself (which is what we did) or do a day trip from Ica. We came from Paracas and it is only a one-hour drive from there. We went with Perú Hop and even had a short stopover at a vineyard where we learned all about Pisco-Peru's national drink.
The Sandboarding Experience
We booked our sandboarding excursion through Perú Hop. An hour after being dropped off at our hostel, The Wild Olive, we were meeting back up with our group ready to brave the sand.
To get to the top of the dunes, you first get to brave an exhilarating 20-minute buggy ride where you are guaranteed to catch some air. In my opinion, this ride, where the drivers must have been training for some sort of racing competition, was just as, if not more, fun than the sandboarding itself.
When we reached the top of the dunes, we were given the option to go down on our bellies or standing up. We chose to fly down the dunes like penguins, and each slope was steeper than the next! By the time we shot down the last dune, there was sand in every nook and cranny, but it was well worth it!
We then hopped back in our buggy to watch one of the best sunsets of Perú with the rest of our tour group.
In total, the tour of the Huacachina dunes lasted around two hours, so it is not completely necessary to spend the night as we did, but doing karaoke at the Wild Rover backpacker hostel was the perfect way to end our adventures in Perú’s desert oasis.
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