DEliTOUR: Dune

We have a regular trick of avoiding capital cities. So far we have swerved Ottawa, Washington, Mexico City, Belmopan (though we have been singing the theme tune ever since we saw Belize´s Police Academy on the outskirts), Guatemala City, Tegucigalpa (ok we did crash one night), Managua (though we did spend some quality time at the airport), Bogota, Quito, and now we swerved Lima.

With the capitals we have only spent quality time in San Juan on Puerto Rico and Caracas in Venezuela. Our two nights in ´prison´ in San Jose (Costa Rica) were eminently forgetable. It is just that, so often, the capital cities seem to offer much less in charm than they do in prospective aggravation - and you can´t see everything. Buenos Aires, from whence I write, would be an exception to our logic- it really is a destination in itself.

So we swerved Lima because we had read about Huacachina; an oasis in the desert. And it was. It was actually in the desert. Neither of us had ever seen endless dunes of sand trailing off towards the horizon. It was stunning. And around a little lagoon were a dozen hotels, and lots of gringos, like us. In the morning we took a walk up one of the dunes. And we took some of the local sandboards. After an exhausting yomp through the sand we got the top, overlooking the oasis, and we tried some sandboarding, in the company of some friendly Bristolians, who were doing exactly the same thing. Unfortunately the local boards were fat planks with velcro ankle strapping. We had been given wax; candle wax; to grease our descent but it really wasn´t happening. Back down at the oasis we sought an alternative and chanced upon a friendly Canadian restauranteur who had a stash of real snowboard and boots - apparently every year a load of Brazilian and Chilean nutters turn up for a sandboard fest and leave their old gear.

So, in the afternoon we went back for real - and in style. The action started with a dune buggie ride. Their were 8 of us and our driver, Rico, and he took us on a roller coaster ride across the sands. We didn´t expect it at all and it was great fun, really exhilerating - a blast. And after a few wild rides we were taken to the tops of a series of progressively higher and steeper dunes to do some boarding. We felt a bit guilty at first that we had the nice boards - but it turned out the most of the others were going for it head first at amazing speed and had no interest in the aesthetics of carving. We managed a few good runs but the wax would only last for a few metres before the board got very sticky - that was our best excuse for poor technique! And we watched the sunset across the dunes. Marvellous.