After yesterday’s culinary adventure – and a quiet night on the restaurant car park – we had a small breakfast and fired up Skype. Patrick was very happy to speak to his godson Lennert on his 5th birthday party. We settled in the car for a short 2 hour drive to the Huacachina Oasis. The road actually passes the route from the 2013 Dakar Rally, which went from Lima to Santiago in Chile.
When we passed through a toll booth about half an hour before reaching our destination, we were pulled over by the police. The officer went over to the front of the car and took a picture with his camera phone. He then came to the driver side and said that our headlights were not bright enough. We knew that In Peru you need to drive with your headlights on – and for sure we had our headlights on. We’ve dealt with police a lot on this trip and we knew that this was about getting a bribe from us. We have learned to take the initiative in that kind of situation and we explained which garages we had been to and which police and customs offices we had visited for car checks. I’m not sure he believed us but he got bored of us after 10 minutes. He asked us in the end if we had money for a soft drink for him, but we refused. Patrick said we didn’t have money in the car – despite the fact that we just got change from the toll booth right in front of the police officer. Impressed with our act, we drove off to the desert oasis!
If we could go back to Nicaragua to the police officer who asked us for a bottle of water (without any bullshit about fake traffic violations), we would gladly buy him a gallon.
Upon our arrival in Huacachina a Landcruiser almost drove into Rodrigo – we were just driving behind a taxi . That sort of put us on guard for a city where you can go on crazy dune buggy rides. We have enough adrenaline from driving the roads here – so we’ll pass. We looked for a hostel in town but it didn’t really feel right. We drove back out and found a brand new hostel with a big gate and a smaller swimming pool just outside the centre.
We spent a bit of time on Skype to catch up with our family (it was a long time ago since we had internet). We’ll leave the exploring of the oasis for tomorrow!
This ain’t the first time this old cowboy’s been throwed
This ain’t the first I’ve seen this dog and pony show
Honey, This ain’t my first rodeo
Keep Calm and Drive South 