#Huacachina | The spa city built on an oasis in the Peruvian desert

For several centuries, the inhabitants of the southern coast of Peru lived alongside a desert, cornered between the Pacific Ocean and the dunes that separated them from the arid immensity. However, at some point, they discovered that a few more than five kilometers from the coast, there was an oasis…

And what is more, in the center of the oasis they found a wide lagoon surrounded by vegetation that was reflected in its wonderful mirror of water. There, as locals say, it lives an ancient Indian girl turned into a mermaid after mourning day and night the loss of her love in war.

Today the lake is connected by a road to the city of Ica and since the early twentieth century it has witnessed how they began to build hotels and resorts all around it. The qualities of the waters called to enjoy some time for a rest and health in the lagoon and therefore Huacachina was born.

From its greatest moment of splendor (in the decades of the 20s and 40s of last century) there remain some hotels and a spa which show signs of an elegant and undoubtedly exotic era for these times and latitudes.

Photos: Walter Torres, Cédric Meurens, Lorenzo Camere and Filippo Bianchi.