Happy Birthday Richard Stopher

It's Ric's birthday and we're in PARADISE!! We're in Huacachina, an oasis in the desert near Ica and its BEAUUUUTIFUL. It wasn't even my birthday yet it was one of the best days of the whole trip.

We're stayin in a pretty swish hotel called Salvatierra and we've got a massive room that Ric described as "Edwardian" (although I'm pretty sure there has been no King Edward of Peru). The bathroom's missing half of the roof but this is Peru afterall, plus it hot here so I see it as more of a lighting feature than a lack of structure.

So to start the day we had breakfast in bed, followed by huuuuge chocolate cake that Id commandeered the owner into getting for us from the nearby town of Ica. It was damn good cake.

Then we spent the best part of the day by the pool, sunbathing, swimming, eating cake and drinking beer. Its boiling hot, about 30 degrees. Absolute bliss.

Giant sand dunes surround the oasis, they're like mountains. When we arrived it was dark and they literally took my breath away when I walked outside in the morning and saw them towering over the hostel.

At 4 we went to explore the dunes in a sand buggy. Better than any rollercoaster I've ever been on! The buggy was a beasty machine that flew over the sand, me and Ric had the front seats so we got the first glimsp of the sheer drops we were driving down. This meant that not only did I scream the entire time, I also started screaming before anyone else in the car because I could see what was coming before anyone else. Ric didn't scream cos he's 'ard, he just laughed at me lots.

We also sand boarded - surfing on sand! It was well fun. I just went down on my belly, which is scary enough because you fly down the sand head first and its really fast. Ric tried standing up but failed quite epically and ended up doing elaborate somersaults down and nearly breaking his neck.

Just to make the day more perfect we watched the sunset from the sand dunes.

In th evening we went for a meal and then chilled by the lake in the middle of the oasis. We even sat in a random rowing boat for a bit.

Its so beautiful here. The one downfall being the hoards of mosquitos which have bitten me to death. But nowhere's perfect.

I could stay here for a long long time but... Ric spent a whole week here on his first lap of Peru and we really do need to hurry up and get to Chile.