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Amazing oasis town in the middle of the desert
thinkorthwim.com — I ’ve never seen an oasis before so this may not be anything special, but I thought it was pretty stunning.
chris1234- 923 diggs
- digg it
- nymphetamine, on 01/13/2008, -0/+30Upclose pic of the lake: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ae/Peru ...
- Elijha, on 01/13/2008, -0/+5I was their a few months ago while on holiday, this oasis is a pure tourist mecca, all the buildings are hotels or restaurants or dune buggy shops (associated with a hotel and restaurant). Literally a few days after my visit an earthquake struck the area (the city you can see closely behind is Ica http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Peru_earthquake) I was told a lot of the Adobe (mud brick) housing in the oasis area collapsed and it would have been devastating for the locals to try and recover.
If you want to see a more realistic (non photoshoped) image try this one of mine ... you can see people literally dragging boards up the dunes next to the town.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamieaust/1322747994/ ...
Awesome town, excellent people, great fun. I'd recommend going their if you are in Peru.
- Elijha, on 01/13/2008, -0/+5I was their a few months ago while on holiday, this oasis is a pure tourist mecca, all the buildings are hotels or restaurants or dune buggy shops (associated with a hotel and restaurant). Literally a few days after my visit an earthquake struck the area (the city you can see closely behind is Ica http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Peru_earthquake) I was told a lot of the Adobe (mud brick) housing in the oasis area collapsed and it would have been devastating for the locals to try and recover.
- gnews, on 01/13/2008, -2/+12A sand storm will be hard core!
- jaybol, on 01/13/2008, -9/+4damn great find...really cool video. many a disillusioned desert dweller probably shrugged this off as a figment of his/her imagination
- Wade, on 01/13/2008, -10/+5By the time I went to see this I found the account suspended. But looking at the up-close picture of the lake I would like to know, are there any animals in the lake (more specifically, large, reptilian animals)?
- Elijha, on 01/13/2008, -0/+2Nope. It's quite dirty water and I saw only birds feeding in it when I was their recently ... though you can hire a row-boat and paddle about if you wish.
- shaka776, on 01/13/2008, -9/+62Buried as inaccurate... it's just a mirage.
- passedoutghost, on 01/13/2008, -8/+3Cameras can hallucinate?!
- jcsw, on 01/13/2008, -1/+3Cameras are not immune to mirages, mirages are not hallucinations but tricks of the light.
- gropo, on 01/13/2008, -1/+1Actually, it's inaccurate as it's not the middle of the desert. Huacachina is basically at the end of a 40 mile spanse of dunes between the Pacific and the city of Ica, where more arable land begins.
- AngelaQ, on 01/13/2008, -3/+1A true mirage would merely be an illusory pool of water resulting from looking across miles of hot sand and water vapor. A city photographed by a camera could not possibly be a mirage.
- GreenAlien, on 01/14/2008, -0/+3Woosh.
- passedoutghost, on 01/13/2008, -8/+3Cameras can hallucinate?!
- evilpig, on 01/13/2008, -7/+14Digg effect only with 70 diggs?
- rkzda, on 01/13/2008, -1/+3Think about how many people looked at it without digging...
- seks03, on 01/13/2008, -1/+26http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&tim ...
- misterjangles, on 01/13/2008, -1/+11that's interesting - if you zoom out of the map you can see this oasis isn't quite in the middle of the desert all by itself. It's not even a mile from what looks to be a fairly major city. still, a cool looking place.
- Pilot85, on 01/13/2008, -1/+18Ruined the magic. i was like "oh, an oasis! far from everything, a remote but beautiful escape from the surrounding barren landscape. Then I was like, oh wait, it's right next to a city. :
- KingGorilla, on 01/13/2008, -1/+2Over that sand dune is another town
- andrewcsayer, on 01/13/2008, -3/+58***** site suspended. Is the damn site hosted on a cell phone?
- HigherLogic, on 01/13/2008, -0/+4Close, it's on BlueHost. Most of the sites that I see suspended that are linked from here tend to be on BH.
- doctordbx, on 01/13/2008, -1/+0Thanks for the heads up... was thinking of moving one of my sites to them... but not sure now.
- dallashigh, on 01/13/2008, -2/+1Great host: http://www.nearlyfreespeech.net
- NihilFist, on 01/13/2008, -0/+1Or HostGator
- doctordbx, on 01/13/2008, -1/+0Thanks for the heads up... was thinking of moving one of my sites to them... but not sure now.
- HigherLogic, on 01/13/2008, -0/+4Close, it's on BlueHost. Most of the sites that I see suspended that are linked from here tend to be on BH.
- ConradAdams, on 01/13/2008, -4/+2Surreal.
- Lixie, on 01/13/2008, -4/+51The photo is misleading. That oasis is only 2 minutes drive from civilization. Had they taken the picture from the other side you'd see farms, vegetation, and buildings in the background.
- chililili, on 01/13/2008, -5/+13Really 2 minutes drive? I have actually been down there in order to reach that town you have to take a 30 minute bus drive from Ica through nothing but amazing mountains of sand and to reach Ica you need a 1 hour and 30 mins flight from the capital. It was a very nice but there is not much to do, there is a merchant center around the water and you can drive a dune buggy/jeep through the sand. Also from there you can take a plane flight to see the Nazca lines which are in the same desert.
But really your farms, vegetation and building are quite a long distance from there.- undersky, on 01/13/2008, -2/+10oh please are you retarded? LOOK AT THE GOOGLE MAP! it's literally ONE MILE away from civilization. i do see vegetation, farm, house, road, city, literally few miles to the East. I don't care where you been to, and by all means, what you seen might be a mirage yourself. I trust my eyes on Google Map, look at it yourself!
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=http:%2F%2Fbbs.keyho ...
- undersky, on 01/13/2008, -2/+10oh please are you retarded? LOOK AT THE GOOGLE MAP! it's literally ONE MILE away from civilization. i do see vegetation, farm, house, road, city, literally few miles to the East. I don't care where you been to, and by all means, what you seen might be a mirage yourself. I trust my eyes on Google Map, look at it yourself!
- gropo, on 01/13/2008, -0/+2I've been there too, and that photo is in fact facing back towards Ica. You can actually see a little bit of farm there in the crotch between the two dunes.
- GrantRobertson, on 01/13/2008, -0/+1I agree. If you zoom out on Google Maps you can see that it is less than 2 miles from irrigated farmland and just a little bit further from populated area. This is nothing more than a rich suburb.
- chililili, on 01/13/2008, -5/+13Really 2 minutes drive? I have actually been down there in order to reach that town you have to take a 30 minute bus drive from Ica through nothing but amazing mountains of sand and to reach Ica you need a 1 hour and 30 mins flight from the capital. It was a very nice but there is not much to do, there is a merchant center around the water and you can drive a dune buggy/jeep through the sand. Also from there you can take a plane flight to see the Nazca lines which are in the same desert.
- Dested, on 01/13/2008, -6/+2Holy *****! You can enter a KMZ url in google maps and it will display it!
- kru1e, on 01/13/2008, -1/+19middle of the desert as in 2 miles from the grocery store.
- potisreallygood, on 01/13/2008, -5/+4not really in the middle of the desert, more like by the ocean surrounded by civilization.
- Unreal595, on 01/13/2008, -3/+6Man, we need a mirror already?? :(
- rodgerdodger5, on 01/13/2008, -2/+3Mirror?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-259043946 ...
- rodgerdodger5, on 01/13/2008, -2/+3Mirror?
- smek2, on 01/13/2008, -2/+8Wow, "posted 5 minutes ago" and already down.
- evereddie, on 01/13/2008, -8/+4"This Account Has Exceeded Its CPU Quota"
CPU Quota! This hosting service does not know what the hell they are talking about. No wonder it's down.- DigitAl56K, on 01/13/2008, -0/+4Actually they do. It'll be a shared hosting server, and that account will have been negatively impacting other accounts hosted on the same box. Imagine 20 accounts on that box and suddenly one lands front page on Digg. If you plan to do high traffic pay for proper hosting.
- gaoshan, on 01/13/2008, -0/+120 accounts? More like 1,000. You think I'm kidding but I'm serious. You'd be surprised at how much some crappy hosts will cram on 1 creaky, old server.
- benbfree, on 01/13/2008, -0/+1That's right. I work for a hosting company that puts around 1000 accounts per box. They're running Xeon Clovertown procs but still, too many in my book.
- evereddie, on 01/13/2008, -2/+1Actually YOU don't and you didn't really read my post did you? Tell me what "CPU" means in your computer dictionary. In mine it does not equal bandwidth.
- darkstar949, on 01/13/2008, -0/+3Read what others are talking about - the CPU Quota is not referring to the bandwidth, it's referring to the CPU time it takes to serve the page. You can host a couple hundred sites on the same server as long as they aren't getting many hits - once one site get a bunch of hits it starts to consume more CPU time, thus decreasing the response time of the other sites, even if the bandwidth is available.
- gaoshan, on 01/13/2008, -0/+120 accounts? More like 1,000. You think I'm kidding but I'm serious. You'd be surprised at how much some crappy hosts will cram on 1 creaky, old server.
- DigitAl56K, on 01/13/2008, -0/+4Actually they do. It'll be a shared hosting server, and that account will have been negatively impacting other accounts hosted on the same box. Imagine 20 accounts on that box and suddenly one lands front page on Digg. If you plan to do high traffic pay for proper hosting.
- CaptainM4d, on 01/13/2008, -6/+2FAY-AIL
- jmpeagle, on 01/13/2008, -3/+23being 5 miles from a lush river valley isn't exactly in the middle of the desert
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&tim ...
zoom out a little- gitrplaya4u, on 01/13/2008, -1/+0Good find.
- rdog99, on 01/13/2008, -2/+5At this place you can go sandboarding, aka, strap a piece of wood to your feet and board down these massive sand dunes similar to snowboarding. The cool thing was the locals had rigged up a lift that they used to get up the hill.
- satanatnmtedu, on 01/13/2008, -5/+2You can do that at places in the US. It is no big deal.
- anselm83, on 01/13/2008, -0/+5Believe it or not, some people on the internet are not from the US.
- delfin1, on 01/13/2008, -0/+1yeah plus in the US you can't go sand boarding and 20 mins later go surf at the beach
- satanatnmtedu, on 01/13/2008, -5/+2You can do that at places in the US. It is no big deal.
- Heymann, on 01/13/2008, -7/+0The link that you put dosen't work???? So would that mean its FAKE?
- Pirate45, on 01/13/2008, -0/+4I believe this oasis was featured in the original version of Flight of The Phoenix.
- HappyScrappy, on 01/13/2008, -3/+5What do you mean "in the middle of the desert"? You can see a non-desert city walking distance away IN THE PHOTOGRAPH.
- supermajic, on 01/13/2008, -2/+3Dune boarding ftw.
- delfin1, on 01/13/2008, -0/+2yeah i remember trying this using a cardbox as board, it doesn't work.
- vyrotek, on 01/13/2008, -8/+3Anyone else notice that there isnt any blue behind the trees on the left? Fake sky?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ae/Peru ...- ho0ber, on 01/13/2008, -1/+2Yeah, if you look at the rough edge along the dune, it looks to be paintbucketed sky. I suspect the sky actually looks much like that of the other photo.
- Scott.Lyles, on 01/13/2008, -1/+3The place is five minutes from Ica, Peru. It's nice.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/scott_lyles/103291587 ...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/scott_lyles/103291586 ... - RickyBennett, on 01/13/2008, -11/+3what it is a nuke plant in a remote location and made to look like a town see the lake that ware they launch the nuke
- RickyBennett, on 01/13/2008, -7/+1man people cant take a joke any more what is this wold coming too
- hellosaysme, on 01/13/2008, -1/+1i c what you did there
- RickyBennett, on 01/13/2008, -3/+1whats i do ??
- hellosaysme, on 01/13/2008, -1/+1i c what you did there
- pennpaper, on 01/13/2008, -0/+4it's your total lack of punctuation that we digg you down. you don't make any sense.
- RickyBennett, on 01/13/2008, -9/+1o my ***** god dude you dont need the ***** punctuation crap to under stand any one all it is a bunch of marks and dots 100% point less
- DephexTwin, on 01/13/2008, -1/+6Wow, you really do type like a retard.
- RickyBennett, on 01/13/2008, -7/+1EXCUSE ME YOU ARE THE ***** RETARD I ***** TYPE JUST FINE AND NO YOU DONT NEED THAT PUNCTUATION CRAP TO TYPE SOME THING YOU ***** RETARD
- DephexTwin, on 01/13/2008, -1/+6Wow, you really do type like a retard.
- RickyBennett, on 01/13/2008, -9/+1o my ***** god dude you dont need the ***** punctuation crap to under stand any one all it is a bunch of marks and dots 100% point less
- RickyBennett, on 01/13/2008, -7/+1man people cant take a joke any more what is this wold coming too
- markhimself, on 01/13/2008, -6/+4google cache
http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:pckH7hZt1l0J: ...- Haiz, on 01/13/2008, -9/+2Faster one: http://ooc.awardspace.com/dotdotdot.html
- TheWorm, on 01/13/2008, -2/+2***** you. Blocked and reported.
For those of you who haven't clicked on this yet it's a rick roll that gives you a damn browser message for every line of the song that you have to click through until it's over. - RickyBennett, on 01/13/2008, -3/+1dont no about any one eles but i hate sites the resizes my web browser with out me telling it too
- TheWorm, on 01/13/2008, -2/+2***** you. Blocked and reported.
- Haiz, on 01/13/2008, -9/+2Faster one: http://ooc.awardspace.com/dotdotdot.html
- DYNAMICENTRYYY, on 01/13/2008, -0/+3I've always wondered what it would be like to live in a place like that. What would you do all day? Oh hey lets go to the lake again! Sounds good!
- PeenieWallie, on 01/13/2008, -5/+1I just got back from there. It's a cool little oasis. Water is freezing cold about 1 meter below the surface. They surf the dunes there on special boards. Read my story about it at www.killingstrangers.com
- krebcycle, on 01/13/2008, -0/+1nice spam
- LanEvo, on 01/13/2008, -0/+2do they not have sandstorms?
- chugger1992, on 01/13/2008, -0/+1CURSE YOU PAINFUL PHP SCRIPTS!!!
- warrenterr, on 01/13/2008, -0/+3Reminds me of Diablo II act II. I can hear the drums already..
- rodgerdodger5, on 01/13/2008, -6/+2bmmbbbbmmbmmbmmmaaaahhhh radddadddingingdingidnig daaaawwwwwww baaaaahhhhmmmm...
wahhhnnn..chicka...wahhhn..chicka...wahhhhn.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNeVyrfOWEk- krebcycle, on 01/13/2008, -0/+1way ridiculous
- Goodanswer, on 01/13/2008, -0/+2Dugg for the " single paddle boat"
wonder if he charges for rides? - andretii, on 01/13/2008, -1/+2*****, this is photoshop. I was trained by warner bros and hanna barberas cartoons this is an alucination.
- delfin1, on 01/13/2008, -0/+2the sandsurfing on the video looks fun.
- fixedcoma, on 01/13/2008, -1/+1See, the desert are beginning to fill with life and water, just another 50 years and the deserts will be beautiful!
- zunkus, on 01/13/2008, -0/+1I've seen pictures of similar settlements...the water will eventually run out and then it will become a ghost town...it's been going on for 1000s of years. As for the above comment, that's not true...the deserts worldwide are growing..pretty fast actually.
- wisam, on 01/13/2008, -2/+1Never knew that there was sand deserts and even dunes in South America.
- zubiaur, on 01/13/2008, -0/+0almost all peruvian coast is desertic, and as a matter of fact Lima is in between a desert :D, all the water comes from the highlands or from the underground...
- krebcycle, on 01/13/2008, -0/+1digg me down
- zubiaur, on 01/13/2008, -0/+0almost all peruvian coast is desertic, and as a matter of fact Lima is in between a desert :D, all the water comes from the highlands or from the underground...
- Thex1138, on 01/13/2008, -0/+1Well it doesn't appear to be an oasis per say...there's a main road to the place for about 1 mile to the city of Ica...where these people can get all there supplies as needed...even water if the oasis dries up..
- MaheshNayak, on 01/13/2008, -0/+0It is beautiful , but in case of sand storm the city may be underneath .
- mathewajith, on 01/13/2008, -2/+0good post, can some tell me the who sung the song in the video
thanks - mahoutie, on 01/13/2008, -0/+2Mos Eisley spaceport. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
- x00x, on 01/13/2008, -0/+1Extraordinary!
- pon4v, on 04/16/2008, -0/+0This is incredible...
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