Day 2 - Huacachina

This hostel is so very chilled that there isn't a set time for breakfast, you can just eat whenever you wake up so we didn't set an alarm. For breakfast we had a nice cup of coffee (it was actually tasty) along with some fresh juice, scrambled eggs and some really nice fresh bread rolls (this is a novelty for us as everywhere else we have stayed in Peru they are usually dry).

After lining our stomachs we headed out on a wine and pisco tour with 4 others we met in the hostel, Adam and Amy from the UK and Alexa and Devyn from the US. The first winery we visited was called Tacama and is apparently the oldest winery in South America. We arrived just after an English speaking tour stared so we had to wait an hour for the next one. This didn't bother us though as there were 2 trampolines in the garden that we could have a bounce on. This amused our taxi driver so much that he filmed us. You may now be able to find us on YouTube under #crazygringos.

The place was huge and far larger than any of the wineries we visited in Mendoza. It was quite the whistle stop tour however we did get to see lots of the old machinery they used back in the day which was really interesting. The building used to be a monastery so it's also really pretty. After our tour we got to try a red, white and semi sparkling wine as well as some pisco.

Our next stop was a much smaller winery called El Catador. This involved a very quick tour before we headed to the tasting area. Here we got to try a rose and a red wine which were incredibly sweet and not good at all. We then got to try some pisco, a tangerine pisco and two pisco cremes. Now pisco is pretty disgusting but the tangerine and cremes were delicious (probably because they didn't taste like alcohol).

We were then meant to visit a third winery but because we had to wait at the first one we ran out of time. We therefore headed back to the hostel for some lunch and sunbathing by the pool.

In the evening we headed into Ica for some dinner. We were going to head into Huacachina however Lorenzo had warned us that the food wasn't good there and a few people had gotten food poisoning which didn't sound that fun. Lorenzo therefore recommended that we visit a Chinese / Peruvian fusion restaurant which sounded pretty interesting so we decided to give it a try. Alexa and Devyn decided to join us too which was nice. It was good Chinese food but I didn't get any Peruvian fusion which was a shame. Simon also managed to order enough rice to feed a large family.Read more