“Beware of the creepy Peruvian men in your room they are saying gross things”… This was how we were met when we entered our room at the Wild Rover Hostel in Huacachina. I won’t lie I was incredibly apprehensive about staying here, I’ve read the reviews and heard loads of awful stories – some being funny, some being slightly more menacing. Entering the hostel instantly you’re hit with a gush of warmth, I’m guessing it’s from all the alcohol and sweat seeping out of people. Everything about the hostel reminded me of the Retox Party Hostel in Budapest that I went when I was 18 interailing. This didn’t bode well with me especially considering I had a break down there on the last day. The breakdown was cause by three Aussie men trying to make me do a shot at 8am in the morning. Now creepy men I can deal with especially considering they will be saying it in Spanish and I won’t understand but it was the girl telling me I couldn’t. So we meet our roomy, 29yrs old now actually 30yrs old which she was celebrating in two days. She was from Kent and had been living in Australia for two years previously to travelling America. First thing she told us was how sick she was as she had been “fed tequila by some Dutch until 5am” and then she showed us her bucket list. She pulled out this cardboard with a list of thirty things she had to do before her birthday, all being exactly as you can imagine. I stared at the bottom bullet point “have a threesome” which she saw, “want to do it?” she asks. I have never met such an entertaining character in my life! To note, we were meant to stay 3 nights but we quickly changed this to 2…

The food wasn’t great there either it all seemed to taste the same regardless of buying a burger or salad. It was also super expensive so Kate and I have agreed it doesn’t align with our backpacking budget but this may be because of the first night… Before this I want to speak a little of Huacachina! It’s an oasis literally in the middle of the desert and it’s beautiful but confusing! I have so many questions surrounding it but the wildrover sort of restricted me from finding out. Instead my curiosity got distracted by coronas and cuba libres.

To begin our adventure here kate and I walked up the sandy hills to watch the sunset. We bought two beers, listened to music and chilled. Thinking back perhaps we were both trying to calm ourselves for the storm brewing ahead. It’s our return to the hostel where it all went wrong. It ended up being an interesting evening with a lot of drinking involved. It was weird I think perhaps I was a little nervous about getting drunk that I didn’t seem too. We met Felicia again and a girl from Luxembourg (sadly I cannot remember her name). Although, she was on our Peru hop too, Kate and I thought she had an attitude problem as she snapped at the Peru hop guide once for speaking too loud. Turns out she was horrifically hungover and in actuality she turned out to be really cool. Later on in the night, we seemed to lose them and found William from Denmark who we end up doing a 3 day hike with. Losing William and many cocktails later we return to our room to find an after party with the “creepy” Peruvian men who actually ended up being really nice. However, they could have said weird stuff and we wouldn’t have known. We ended up following them to a club and were taught salsa which was fun but ended up being annoying when every single boy wanted to have a go with the “gringo girls”. Luckily, we made our escape when kate came running up saying she had been sick in the toilet.

Waking up the next morning was actually fine, as I said before I really didn’t feel drunk. I think it was by 12 o clock we were drinking coronas again with Felicia by the pool. Then we got ready for our dune buggy ride and sand boarding on the sand dunes. Everyone we spoke to recommended this and said it was exhilarating. However, I think our guide was a bit lazy because it definitely wasn’t the “scary ride” I had expected. Sandboarding was also cut a little short as we were delayed departing but all in all it was fun. The best bit about it was the team morale and just stopping and looking at the vast landscape.

I think I must have eaten something weird because what started next was a case of the travellers bug, so I ended up going to bed pretty early and escaped the wildrover “FREE SHOTS” thank God. The next day we got our Peru hop around 1 with Felicia who decided she would come to arequipa for a night to break up the long journey to Cusco. Off we went… our first stop to a Pisco distillery!