Huacachina!

Thursday, October 2nd, 2008
[Pictures Pending]
Day 95 on The Big Trip. “Bored? Dune board!”

Morning means making breakfast before the working crew takes over the kitchen for the Banana Restaurant Hostel. It also means the wild dune buggy ride is soon upon us! We each dress accordingly; I chose long socks, boots, and pants for armor. We meet the only other people staying at our hostel of two side by side huts: Daniel and Jamie. The other people who booked their dune buggy tour through our hostel start showing up and soon the driver is here, too.

As we’re about to pull out in our dune buggy we are told that we need a few soles per person to pay an additional fee to receive the ticket for the ride. Everyone has to make money somehow. Quickly I unbuckle and run back to the hut to grab our puny pocket change purse. I mistakenly believed that “paid in full,” meant that the ticket was ours.

And we’re off! The buggy cruises around the block before leaving the streets for the dunes. The buggy has a roll cage; aren’t roll cages ineffective for sand dunes? At least we’ll be splitting the time between cruising up, down, and around these sand dunes with sand boarding on our feet and stomachs with tremendous vistas!

The buggies park at the top of sets of dunes and release us with our boards and candlesticks. We wax our boards while looking down the dunes and wondering how we’ll each fare! Since I have two or three days’ experience snowboarding I am pressured into going early on to provide an example. Thanks! It’s great fun! It’s amazing and much more difficult to turn with these boards in the sand than it is to curve any which way you please in the snow, but otherwise quite similar.

The neat part about sand boarding is that you can treat the board like a sled, which you don’t do with snowboards. This way, instead of slowing down by turning like you do standing up, you just pick up speed and hope there are not that many footprints (speed bumps) at the bottom. If there are and you have a heart attack, you’re in luck: it’s like CPR!

The last run of our first four dunes in a row is the largest of them all. At the bottom we will be picked up and brought to another great boarding location. At the top of this last dune stand myself and Jamie, the block from our hostel, our hutstel. He wants me to go first, and I don’t mind one way or the other: we’re both going to be watched by everyone whose buggy still hasn’t left. There are at least three, maybe four buggies remaining at the bottom of this locale at this point, which means that there are about 30 people waiting down there, maybe more! Jamie decides he’d like to go last and see how I go down, pick up some pointers maybe.

I start cruising and try to switch board edges and turn, but end up flipping or something! By now I’m trained to close my eyes and roll a little, so I’m fine and quickly hop up and finish the huge run! What a blast! I unstrap the Velcro holding my feet in and run to join the others waiting for only Jamie now before lugging ourselves through the difficult terrain of sand to the buggies, 100 meters away. The group of us stand with our boards as our canes, backs against a magic carpet of sand of monstrous proportions.

Jamie takes off the top; we watch. He is coming straight down, not using any edges or going at an angle like I had and thus, he is going much, much faster. A few cheers sound as he comes down and nears the bottom, but wait. He stands up a little, just before the sand begins to crest back into flatness and this puts the tip of his board in: he flips forward, smacking once hard on the back of his neck, and around again he comes, screeching to a halt by body-flapping smack flat into the sand, head down. Everyone is stunned.

He doesn’t move and for a moment I think that he’s just showing us that he hit hard and he’s about to stand up, but no, not so. The group of us runs to meet him, as he doesn’t move at all for a “good” 10 seconds. As we meet him and roll him over a bit, he finally gains consciousness. Sand is in his eyes, coating them. Sand is dripping from his nose. Sand is where Jamie is. But this isn’t what we’re worried about: we’re worried about his head and any injuries he may have sustained. He doesn’t remember what happened. He thinks that maybe a buggy hit him. Water is poured over his face, and drinking water is used to clean out his mouth. Thankfully there’s a nurse on hand who makes sure that Jamie doesn’t sit up right away. Unfortunately, it wasn’t Ninny, but hey – we’re in the desert! Can’t find Ninny everywhere! The story ends up that he feels find and he graduates sand-eating to become a dune buggy tour photographer. In fact, because Jamie stayed with the dune buggy henceforth, he was the only tourist in our group who actually got to see the sunset! (Note: we took the 4pm departure dune buggy tour because the sunset is part of it and is supposed to be gorgeous. Thankfully, Jamie and the driver took pictures of the sunset using everyone’s camera!)


CAMERA REVIEW: Olympus 1030SW.
Jamie had our rugged Olympus 1030SW when he crash-landed into a sand dune, the camera crashing and flying out of his pocket into the sand alongside him. Although there was a bit of sand along the tiny ridges of the camera, it was easily wiped- and blown-off. A bit of sand is stuck inside of the function turnstile, which is otherwise functioning fine, at least for the time being. Otherwise, no sand was found within any of the important interior areas such as the battery compartment, behind the flat lens cover, or in the USB port. And of course, with all of the bumping and bouncing this camera did, all of the files were intact. Good job, Olympus!

After the dune boarding was done, we hopped back in the buggy for the trip back. The sun setting, we cruised around in the buggy with headlights, noting other buggies with lights darting in and out of dunes, even in front of us. The wind over the desert was strong, especially in the buggy and looking around behind me (Alisa and I had the front two seats next to the driver!), I note that only one other person besides myself and the driver are not wearing sunglasses! But of course we’re practicing our squinting faces! The driver would slow down almost to a stop before every dip or top of a dune, as we began our plunge down sand hills, some small, some very steep, and all a mystery until we crested the top and could see down!

We screeched back to our hostel, a great way to end the buggy tour. The driver tells us to get Jamie a drink, but of course we’ll be more apt to find him food, ice, and his bed! This fun of a trip with a group of travelers ends nicely with a beginning of introductions and plans for dinner and drinks. Unfortunately, with Alisa’s tummy not feeling so great, we have to make soup at our hostel, but tell everyone we’ll meet up with them for drinks – which we did - after we eat and watch the Vice Presidential debate!

A great night leaves us tired and not so much looking forward to leaving this relaxing and oddly exuberant town. I could easily go boarding and buggying for another few days! Anyone?!

On to the next day!