So the following morning in huacachina, Megs and I decided to go for the buggy tour. It was kind of expensive for us, but it was something that everyone had been telling me I had to do. Plus I had been looking into trying my hand at sandboarding. And unless I wanted to walk up these dunes, which when you see the photos you will understand why I did not, the only option was the buggy.
What cracked me up was our hostel dudes lax attitude towards arrival and departure at his hostel. it was great. After breakfast we left to return to the room to pack up our things. Check out was at noon, so we were going to need to have our things out and stored before the buggy ride ... Or so we thought. We come out of the room with our packs on our backs and the guy is shouting at us. "the buggy's waiting. Get in the buggy." plus mind you he is speaking in English but with a very strong accent, so every time he says buggy it actually sounds like boogy, which makes me chuckle. So anyhow we lug our packs explaining we just want to check out and he responds with "no no you don't need to check out. I just want you to pay me and get in the buggy. Keep the room. You come back and shower, feel clean. Just get in the buggy". Ok so it doesn't sound that funny on paper but really it was quite hysterical.
So in the buggy you have our driver smiley and his tío, 2french girls and this other dude who was rather quiet the whole time. Smiley was an absolute trip. In buggies you are supposed to have a harness seatbelt, almost like a kid has on his cArseat And it's very important you wear them because otherwise you may fly out. Oh but not smiley. Oh no he's a professional. So were going over these insane dunes and he would floor it before a very steep one and then just laugh at us as we laughed and screamed. Apparently his uncle kept telling him that he was going to fast. :) it kind of reminded me of a roller coaster but I'm not a huge fAn of roller coasters and I think I have realized why. In a buggy you are bouncing all over the place at high speeds ready to fly out of your seat but you're grounded and there is someone there comtrolling it. Its like I gunk that a rolercoaster is going to lose sense of the rail and fly off. But yes if you ever are in the ica area, most definitely do the buggies.
Sandboarding although fun was quite difficult. Originally we just went on our stomachs which was like sledding. Then I tried swapping to feet. At first it seemed like snowboarding, but sand has a different consistency than snow and it adds an interesting twist. Sand is soft but heavy. So if you try to carve at all the board will dig in slightly but he weight of the sand will slow it down and pretty much stop it. Plus we were really just riding on waxed pieces of plywood with Velcro for straps, so that didn't help either. I went down a couple of times, and then wiped out...hard. My neck had whiplash soreness for days after popping back so hard. I got up and tried again but was still a bit woozy and fell on my face again, not as Badly as before but still not in an exactly graceful manner. At this point I was done. likely it was our last run. I got back in the buggy, bounced back to the lagoon, and found sand in everything for days.
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