Wanna Huacachina?

When given a weekend off and the amazing Peruvian dollar, what would you do? How about head to Huacachina?!?!?!
Its just a little town. In the middle of the desert. Situated around a lagoon. Actually, its a magical lagoon. And its on the 50 soles bill. Its more of a mirage really. One of those images that crosses your mind as you are deliriously stumbling through the desert dehydrated and starved. You see a mirage, a beautiful paradise town with a lagoon and circa 1890s architecture. Well, it actually exsists, and that my dear friends is where I spent the weekend.
We started off by hitting up an awesome restaurant for some of the best food we've had yet. This was followed by some random drinks, fish bowls of cocktails and Craig getting chased by dogs then hit on by a very flamboyant salsa instructor.
The next day brought on wine tours full of red wines, white wines and pisco. Pisco is 43% proof alcohol made from grapes. I wouldn't say its delicious - its very similar to tequila in taste and effect. I'm not sure if the next idea was that brilliant, but after the wine tours we went sandboarding. We drove deep into the sand dunes in dune buggies and then boarded down various sand dunes. Unbelievable. The gear wasn't top notch, but if you were to purchase some decent equiptment, sandboarding would be very very similar to snowboarding - and the ride back up to the top of the hill is much much more fun.
After the pretty full Saturday, we woke early and headed for a boat tour of the Paracus Peninsula which turned out much much wetter than we ever expected - but we saw penguins (thats right, Peruvian Penguinos) and sea lions and so many birds that we're pretty sure we entered into Kevin Chubey's hell. There weren't any one legged seagulls Kev, but there was around 10,000 other fully functioning gulls.
So that is the jist of our adventurous weekend. We got to see not only the ocean and the desert but the drive in between. The contrast in Peru is mind-blowing and most definitely leaves you twisting between being amazed by the beauty and culture and stunned by the difference between the lives of those who use the ocean for play, and those who rely on it for life.