Sandboarding in Lima, Peru (MUST Do!)

I had an absolute blast sandboarding on my last day in Peru with my partner and a friend we made on the Inca trail! It was the last excursion we had before eating dinner and heading back to the airport, and one of the highlights of the trip.

Most people take the tour out to Huacachina on PeruHop 4-5 hours each way, but we didn’t have that kind of time left. We booked our tour with @sandridelima through Airbnb and Rafael, our guide and Sandride Lima owner, was incredible. On the way to the Chilca Desert (a much more efficient 90 minutes away) our 4×4 broke down and despite the fact that we were already dressed in our gear, our adventure should’ve ended there. When Rafael found out that we didn’t have any days left in our trip for him to make it up to us, he managed to get us to a nearby dune buggy rental shop and the experience became even more exhilarating as we rode through the dunes with the wind in our hair. 

Many of the pictures and videos I’ve seen of the sandboarding tours around Huacachina are crowded with people and multiple tours sharing space. Our tour left at 1 pm and we didn’t see a single soul the entire time we were out there. It was awesome in the most literal sense of the word, invoking awe. You could forget for a moment that other people existed, or that you were still on planet Earth at all. I can’t speak to the view of the picturesque Huacachina in real life, but looking out at the small town of Chilca in the shadow of mountains before our first plunge was mesmerizing. 

Rafael took amazing HD photos and videos of each of our runs. It looks so slow on camera, but it felt like we were flying down the sides of the dunes and we all took a tumble more than once. There was sand in every crevice of our clothes and bodies for the flight home, but we were also comfortably exhausted from the physical exertion and the afterglow of exhilaration. 

I highly recommend sandboarding no matter where in the world you encounter it, but I also encourage a second look at less popular destinations. The sheer otherworldliness of being the only people around for miles amidst never-ending piles of sand is a feeling I won’t soon forget.