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Day
6 (August 30, 2025) Huacachina
Before
We'll get up early this morning to take our bus at 9:30 AM
from Lima to Ica, a journey of about 5 hours.
Once there, we'll head to the Huacachina oasis, where our hotel is
located, and spend the rest of the day enjoying that exceptional place.
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After
We didn't need a wake up call, but at least this time we
woke up just an hour earlier than planned: 7:00 AM. We go downstairs
for breakfast and pack our bags to continue our journey. The taxi
we'd booked for 8:30 AM was waiting and drop us off at the Cruz
del Sur bus station 45 minutes before our 9:30 AM bus.
We check in in one desk and check our luggage on another one. When we
board the bus, we see that our bags are ready to be managed and take our
seats with just our backpacks.
The bus leave on time, and after sleeping for most of the
trip, we arrive in Ica at 2:30 PM. A taxi from the hotel was waiting
to take us to Huacachina, where we get our first glimpse of the immense
dunes as we're reaching the oasis where we will be staying.
Once settled in our room by the pool, the first thing we do is
go to the hotel restaurant for lunch. Eva orders chicharrones with
cecina and carapulcra with sopa seca, and I order conchas a la
parmesana and lomo saltado. Everything is delicious, but the carapulcra
wins because of the combination of the bacon with the sauce.
After lunch and some pisco sours, we do our first exploration of the oasis. We soon
find the entrance to the path that circles the lagoon, which seems out
of place surrounded by high sand walls.
On the oposite side of the town entrance, they
charge 3.5 soles to access, and people start to gather in this area,
as it's the quickest and easiest way to the top of a dune where you can
do the main activity in this oasis: watching the sunset among the dunes.
We return to the hotel to prepare for the climb, which
mainly involves choosing the right footwear, and then we head back. I
wear sandals, and after paying, we begin the ascent. But we hadn't
taken into consideration the added difficulty of the terrain: if
climbing a steep
slope is already hard, the sand makes our feet sink in, and we barely
make any progress. Eva needs a break, and I make an extra effort to
reach the top and see how long it will be before the sun reaches the
horizon. It's not far from it.
The trick that made the climb easier was taking off
my sandals. Bare feet move much better. So I backtrack a bit until I
see Eva, who's talking to a local girl, and I shout out the advice.
Thanks to that, they both manage to climb up. From here, we
admire both the sunset and the view of the oasis from this height.
When the sun disappears, people start heading down,
and we join them. The town has turned on its lights, which reflect in
the lagoon, offering a different view that invites us to stroll around it once we're down below.
We find out that there's quite a lively atmosphere with
several bars and areas with music. We do some shopping in a few stores
at the point where we turn around to make our way to the hotel.
However, we experience that, while the hotel is quiet, a nearby
hostel is not and the music is blasting. We go to bed surrounded by
reggaeton, and it continues until 3 AM. Later we'll learn that
Huacachina is already a party destination on weekends, but today,
besides being Saturday, it is also Santa Rosa de Lima, which seems to be the national
holiday. Surprisingly, our exhaustion allows us to sleep quite well
despite the music.
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