Boobies and Sand

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We left Lima on Tuesday and arrived early evening in Paracas and was greeted by the sun. After we collected our bags we walked into the town to find our hostel, Paracas Backpackers.

The hostel is a series of wooden cabins with a shower and toilet block down the back, a little kitchen and a sandy area with hammocks and sun chairs to hang out on. Though it looked quite basic it was nice and even had WiFi.

We took a look through town and had dinner and went to bed early in preparation for getting up for the Ballesta Island tour in the morning.

We were told that the tours left a 8am sharp, like English time - not Peruvian time. It was about 8.30 by the time we got in the boat! We went past some islands not far from the shore where a cactus had been drawn into the sand, 70m*50m. The guide said there were many romours about where it came from, including UFOs or the Masons.

We then went to the islands that are covered in birds and other animals, including Sea Lions and little Penguins, Peruvian Boobies and Pelicans. The islands are covered in Guano and every 7 years men come and harvest it to sell on. Stuart was lucky as he had some Guano delivered to him from a bird, right in his face!

We then went on a tour of the Paracas National Park and went to see some sights such as the Cathederal rock (though it was damaged in the 2007 earthquake) and a beach that had all red sand, and another that had black sand. We also went to the little musuem and found out that Paracas comes from the words rain (para) and sand (acas) It was very windy and after lunch we headed back to Paracas town in a sand storm, which was fun and scary as the driver could only see about 2ft in front. When we got back to the town there was sand everywhere, Paracas definatly lives up to its name! The wind was so bad it made the communication tower in Pisco fall down so we were without internet!!!!

The next day we enjoyed the sun and hammocks before we left for Ica to get a overnight bus to Arequipa. Ica was in gridlock as some roads were closed due to the President visting but we made it to our bus station. The taxi driver was very insistent on us buying a tour with him, luckily our bus station was at a hotel so we said we'd call him in the morning (he said he'd come and ask for us!), we left that night so don't know if he ever came back.

We'll update again soon. Enjoy the pics.

xx

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