|
|
 |
|
|
Sandboarding
|
|
|
|
Conquering the biggest Sand Dune of the world
Cerro Blanco - PERU
|
|
|
|
Still 2 miles away from the face of Cerro Blanco, Sandro, Gonz and Guti fear the inevitable
|
|
|
|
has at least 700 feet, many of the Ica dunes (south of Lima) are above 500 feet (Huacachina, Saraja, etc) and dunes like "El Filo de la Navaja" in Casma are not only huge (900 feet) but also
extremely steep. There is however, a sand dune so big in fact that it defies comprehension and stretches far beyond anyone's imagination. It is the Everest of the desert and the mother of all dunes. THE DUNE. It is
called Cerro Blanco and it's located 9 miles east of Nazca, about 300 miles South of Lima.
|
|
|
|
|
This dune, which looks more like a mountain, was first sandboarded in 1987 by a group of Italian snowboarders who made a documentary for European TV. At that time I didn't sandboard, nor
knew what
|
|
|
|
|
it was all about. However, being a die-hard skateboarder I couldn't but dream of riding that dune someday. I started sandboarding in 1988 but didn't go to Cerro Blanco until probably 1993.
Not many
people had ridden the dune by then but there were many tales on how difficult the hike was. Located far away from the highway and basically in the middle of the desert, where temperatures could climb or drop very
fast. My first time there was very unfortunate. I wasn't prepared for the size of the dune and the inclement weather. Me and my friend Agustin Panizo aborted the mission after climbing almost half of it. We went
back to Nazca in very bad shape, dehydrated and sunburned, not a nice experience.
|
|
|
|
In 1995 the town of Nazca held a sports competition and among other sports they had sandboarding. The location was Cerro Blanco, of course. When we got to the dune the day of the competition
we couldn't see the dune. It was completely covered by the thickest cloud I had ever seen. We started hiking, hoping that the cloud would go away as the day went by. Walking inside a cloud is one the
craziest things I've experienced, visibility was
|
|
|
|
just 10 feet and we even lost a group of competitors, it was humid and cold. We hiked for hours, probably 4 or 5, not knowing which way we were going, the only way for us was straight up. Finally some
of the crew decided to quit, it made sense for everybody. It was obvious that the competition was going to be cancelled, the judges were 4 miles away from us and actually didn't know where we were.
|
|
|
|
sights of my life when I suddenly got out of the cloud while still riding down the dune, only to find that the bottom half of the dune was uncovered, sunny and warm.
It wasn't until last year that I finally "conquered" the top of Cerro Blanco. This time we had a very well organized trip. The riders were Willy "Guti" Landazuri, Marco Malaga (me)
and Sandro Garcia. Our cameraman was Gonzalo " habilidad" Seminario.
|
|
|
|
|
|
We started the day around 6 a.m. Our plan was to hike to the top early in the morning before the temperature rise. We had tons of water, food, medicines and a cell phone in case we had
problems. To approach the base of the
|
|
|
|
|
dune took us around an hour. We inspected the dune, it didn't look "that big". We decided to take the less steep but longest path. My experience of years of hiking dunes has taught me that
going straight up is not always the shortest way and definitively not the easiest. The hike was very nice and we talked and joked for hours, the sight was also beautiful and the day was just perfect. We found dune
formations I'd never seen anywhere else before and other interesting things like ceramics from ancient Inca cultures and red trees that resembled the Joshua tree.
|
|
El Team PERU en la cumbre de Cerro Blanco (2076 msnm)!
|
|
|
|
La bajada
|
|
|
|
Up to that point we never discussed about how we were going to ride the dune, if we were to make several stops or just bomb it straight down in one shot. Guti and me decided for the second option and
had a thrill ride, going at an average speed of 40 mph, almost flying over the hard sand! We were pretty close to each other during the whole ride and didn't stop screaming even for
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Cerro Blanco is located 300 miles south of Lima near the city of Nazca (Ica)
Altitude: 2076 msnm Base 900 msnm Vertical Drop 1176 meters (3858 feet)
|
|
|
|
All photos and video copyrighted by pesnow/peruboarding.com
|
|
|
When people think of dunes they imagine small to medium size sand formations in the Sahara desert. Few people know that
dunes can get really big, which is why most people are totally shocked when they see dunes the size of Dumont (400 vertical feet) or Great Sand Dunes in Colorado (700 ft). The tallest dune in
Europe (Pilat dune), which is just 300 feet are small in comparison while Dunes in Peru are monstrous. I am serious. Lomo de Corvina in Lima 
End Note: This expedition
and successful descent was accredited by DRI (Dune Riders International - USA and The Guinness Book of World Records as the longest continuous run on a sandboard. Here is the script
from DRI : "12/30/98 - Marco Malaga, William Landazuri - 2.05 min. longest continuous run (1,600 m) - Cerro Blanco, Peru". Before being accepted the material was
evaluated with pictures and video.
