Huacachina

The lagoon formed by natural seepage from underground aquifers, a rare pool of water among the dunes of one of the driest deserts on earth. Its name comes from the Quechua wakachina, meaning to guard or conceal, possibly short for "hidden lagoon". Legend says the lagoon was made by a native princess who fled when a hunter surprised her bathing; the pool, or her mirror, became the lake, the folds of her mantle became the dunes, and she is said to live on in the water as a mermaid.

The nearby city of Ica was founded by the Spanish on 17 June 1563 as Villa de Valverde, in a valley long inhabited by earlier cultures, and became the traditional heart of pisco production. Huacachina became a resort for Ica families, and in the 1960s it was a popular summer resort for tourists from around the world. The oasis was honoured on the back of the 50-sol note in 1991.

From the early 2000s the increase in well-drilling in the Ica valley began to threaten the aquifers that feed the lagoon. In 2015 local business groups began pumping water into the lake to preserve it. A restoration project led by the Peruvian scientist Marino Morikawa was announced in 2016. The 2007 earthquake caused extensive damage and loss of life in Ica.

Huacachina's culture is a meeting of two worlds. For decades it has been a favourite family destination for the people of Ica, who come to the lagoon to walk, row and bathe; according to local legend the water and mud are therapeutic, and some still cover themselves in the mud hoping to ease arthritis, rheumatism or asthma. It is increasingly an attraction for travellers from further afield too, drawn by the dunes, with hostels, bars and tour desks around the water.

The dunes give the place its identity. Sandboarding and rides in the areneros, the local dune buggies, are the reasons most visitors come, and many visitors climb to the rim of the dunes to watch the sunset over the desert.

Ica's wider culture surrounds the village: the pisco bodegas of the valley, the regional museum's collection of Paracas and Nazca artefacts, and the community of Cachiche, known for its traditions of witchcraft. The legend of the mermaid of the lagoon, said to take one man each year, is told to every visitor.

Only about 100 people live in Huacachina permanently, outnumbered by the tourists who stay each year. Daily life revolves around hospitality: hostels and hotels, restaurants, buggy drivers and the shops selling jams and liqueurs. The resort is geared to local families from Ica as well as to foreign travellers, and the lagoon promenade is where both meet. Paddle boats and rowing boats on the water, dune tours leaving in the afternoon and the crowd on the dunes at sunset set the rhythm of the day.

Most residents' links are with Ica, a city of over 280,000 people at the 2017 census, a few kilometres away, where the schools, hospitals, banks and markets are. The Ica valley grows cotton, grapes, asparagus, avocados, mangoes and olives, and pisco and wine production are long-standing industries.

The future of the lagoon is the village's central concern. The water that once seeped naturally from the aquifers is now topped up by pumping, as farms and wells draw down the water table in one of the driest places on earth.

The food of Huacachina is the food of Ica and the south coast. Restaurants around the lagoon serve travellers and visiting families, and Ica itself has the markets and local restaurants where the valley's produce is cooked.

Ica is the heart of pisco country. The clear grape brandy is distilled in the bodegas of the valley, from small family-run artisanal producers to large industrial wineries that supply the whole country and export abroad, and many of them also make sweet red wine. The pisco sour is the classic drink.

The valley's fruit turns up in jams sold around the lagoon — mango, fig and guanábana, or soursop — together with liqueurs. Ica's traditional sweets are tejas, filled with manjar blanco, a milk caramel, and coated in fondant, or in chocolate as chocotejas.

The wider south coast supplies the rest of the menu: seafood from the Pacific, cured in lime as ceviche, and the criollo dishes of the coast, such as causa, chilled layers of seasoned yellow potato, and ají de gallina, chicken in a creamy yellow-chilli sauce. Purple-corn chicha morada and Inca Kola are the everyday soft drinks.