Part 27 - The road to Cusco - Paracas & Huacachina

The Peruhop bus company also stops at places of interest between the main destinations - the first of which was a food stop where you could see a dancing horse and play guinea pig roulette.

"Why the long face?" ... "Why the shit joke?"

There's no sugar-coating this. Guinea pig death row.

The first destination was Paracas, a beach resort on the Pacific Ocean. Beaches and bright sunshine aren't really my thing so I only stayed one night, but we did get taken out into the desert which was a lot colder than I imagined. The parts where the desert met the ocean were stunning.

Looks warm. Wasn't.

Then some guy walked into view and ruined my "lost in the desert" shot

Next up was Huacachina, an oasis in the middle of the desert near the city of Ico. Its main attraction is its sand dunes, and most of my fellow travellers and I booked a small innocuous-sounding excursion called "Sand buggy and sandboarding".

The sandboarding part was great fun - although I'm still finding sand weeks later.

The dune buggy bit, however, wasn't just a quick journey to the top of a sand dune. It was an extended white knuckle ride with scant regard for neither health nor safety (so much so that the UK Foreign Office explicitly warns against it). Still, there's no denying it was fun. Apologies for the rubbish video, but there was a very real danger of losing my phone and never finding it.