We spent seven days in Lima. There is plenty to keep you busy in Lima. We just scratched the surface, but we also wanted to get out and explore other areas of Peru.
We hired Ignacio, who took us on tours of Lima, as a tour guide to take us on the next part of our adventure to Huacachina and Paracas. The drive from Lima to Huacachina, with stops, is about five hours.
The scenery from Lima to Ica is a desert backdrop. We passed through Chilca- home of UGO sightings, ice cream, and thermal nuclear power plants.
Huacachina is a desert oasis twenty minutes from the town of Ica. It is magical to drive into giant dunes and find a small town with a lake and lots of trees.
We stayed at the Ecocamp Lodge at the base of the dunes. The small ecolodge has tents, communal bathrooms, and a pool. The tents have two double beds. The kids slept in one tent and adults in the other.
We went sandboarding the day we arrived. The tour was arranged by our guide, but there are many places in town to book the tour. We walked into the dunes at 5:00 pm and boarded a dune buggy.
The dune buggy is a wild ride. It is like a roller coaster. The driver took us up, down, and sideways on the dunes. We all enjoyed the ride. We sand boarded too. It looks scary from the top of the dune, but it is pure fun!
Our sandboarding tour ended at a spot where we watched the sunset. Lucas and Henry do not yet appreciate sunsets. Lucas says he will in about 20 years. The boys and their cousins played in the sand. Lucas, Henry, their cousin Nell and I spent our second afternoon climbing the dunes. It is not easy, but it is worth the hike. The views are breathtaking.
The next day, we took a three-hour-long bumpy ride to Canyon de Los Perdidos. The canyon was formed by the erosion of the Seco River which flows into the Ica River. The canyon was discovered by a lost fisherman in 2011. It is a national monument of Peru. It has only been open for tourism since 2019.
It is called canyons of the lost because the mayor at the time got lost trying to visit it. He eventually found it, but a journalist traveling with him wrote an article and titled it “Cañón de Los Perdidos”. The name stuck.
From Huacachina, we drove an hour and a half to Paracas. We stopped along the way for pisco tasting. We learned about the process of making pisco. The kids found ice cream while we were trying pisco. Most of the pisco is too sweet for me.
The town of Paracas is not much to see. We stayed in a beach resort just outside of Paracas. The resort is sterile to the point of depressing. There are security guards that stalk you waiting to catch you breaking rules. The buildings are poorly designed. We all got mosquito bites at night because there are no screens on the doors or windows and no other way to get air in the house. The ocean is cold and full of jellyfish and manta rays. It had nice pools and a beautiful sunset. It was fine, but we would not choose to stay in the area again. We only spent two nights in Paracas.
The real attraction of Paracas is the National park. It is a desert with red sand beaches and stunning views of the ocean. We spent an hour at a beach where Lucas and Nell went kayaking. The ocean current pulled them far to the left, but they made it back.
We ate lunch in a small fishing village. To pay for the lunch with a credit card, we had to drive 3 kilometers up a hill with a worker on a motorcycle to find a signal for the credit card machine. He had two other passengers on his bike who were also trying to pay by credit card.
Day two in Paracas was a short boat ride to an island with tons of sea lions and birds. We saw dolphins!
After the boat ride and some souvenir shopping, we rode back to Lima for our last night with Sam, AC, Nell, and Vivian. Our two-week trip with family was a vacation. We went at a pace that we do not usually travel. It was fun, but now we need some downtime before our next adventure in Peru, the Sacred Valley. Stay tuned!
