One of the highlights of my 12 night tour of Peru with Plotpackers was a night spent glamping in the desert in Huacachina, complete with sandboarding and dune buggy rides.
Huacachina is a village near the city of Ica which is built around a small oasis in the sand dunes – a bucket list destination in Peru which even rivals the iconic Machu Picchu.
You can easily get to Huacachina from Lima using Peru Hop – a convenient bus network which will deliver you to and collect you from your accommodation.
Our group arrived at the Duna Camp office at 3pm to check in, and repacked our bags so that we had everything we needed for a night glamping in the desert in a small backpack. Our large packs were stored at the Duna Camp office for the night, and we were able to shower (there are no showers at the desert campsite itself) and buy drinks to take to our camp site.
Huacachina Sandboarding and Dune buggy rides
Once we were all ready we jumped into a couple of Huacachina Tours dune buggies and drove the short distance down a very busy road to the Huacachina Desert. What followed was an adrenaline filled few hours with our professional drivers driving us up and down the dunes, stopping to take photos and to enjoy the dunes in various ways.
One of the places we stopped was a viewing point for the Huacachina Oasis and it was fascinating seeing all the people and buggies parked up. The following night we stayed at Banana’s Adventure Hostel on the edge of the Oasis and discovered you can walk around it in about five minutes.
At another stop we got the opportunity to be towed on tubes by the buggies which was heaps of fun with sand flying absolutely everywhere.
We then got to sandboard down three different sand dunes. I tried this both lying on the board and sitting on it. Sitting is definitely the way to to go – while we were told we must not put our legs to slow ourselves down it was a less bumpy ride which resulted in fewer bruises. The buggies collected us at the bottom so that we didn’t need to scramble back up the steep and hot sand dunes but I’d recommend carrying water and having plenty of sunscreen on.
As the sun began to set, the dune buggies escorted our group to a spot in the dunes where we could view the sunset and take photos, before we finally arrived at our beautiful glamping site for the night – our tents and beds already set up for us.
Glamping in the desert
We had incredible nibbles to start while a delicious meal was cooked in the desert for us which included grilled vegetables, corn and a protein of our choice. We later roasted marshmallows around the campfires with one staff member remaining with us in the desert with their own tent, blasting music from a Spotify playlist until 9:30pm. There was a plan to project a movie onto the sand however they apparently couldn’t get the projector working.
With no wifi or phone reception and a limited number or drinks we retired to our tents at a very reasonable hour. The beds were super comfortable and cozy with plenty of blankets and this was probably the best night’s sleep I had during my trip to Peru.
Waking up in the morning in the middle of a quiet desert was amazing. At around 8am the dune buggies returned to collect us and took us back to the glamping office for breakfast (bread, eggs cooked to our liking, juice, tea and coffee) and showers. The showers were on the cold side, making them the only disappointing aspect of the experience.
Glamping in the desert in Huacachina was a unique night under the stars and something I will remember forever.
