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Paracas Bus trip was pleasant and comfortable and we arrived more or less on time and found our transfer waiting.
Hostel Los Frayles (20 USD double with private bathroom, incl b/fast) was new, clean and pleasant with a nice Cafe downstairs.
Up early and ready for our boat trip. Many stalls being set up on a waterfront promenade. Would have been nice to eat here the previous night. A number of the stalls were selling fossils and a couple seemed to have minerals for sale.
What was amazing was the number of people who arrived for the trip - many by bus from (presumably) Ica and Nasco. There was a bit of a delay in leaving due to the fog but we were soon away in 30 person speedboats (x4). We passed the saltworks and then headed out the point where you could see the Candlabra (the only part of the Nasca lines to be seen in its entirety from groundlevel), but unfortunately it was mostly still covered in fog. The coastal area here was volcanic, with a number of flows showing alteration. Rainfall is very low (majority of moisture is gained from fogdrip) so likely to have
some interesting secondaries here.
We then headed off to the main attraction, The Ballastas Islands. Wildlife was present in abundance and the pictures show it better than I could describe. Hopefully I´ll be able to upload one of the videos showing a seal pup playing with a starfish. We ran into pod of dolphins on our way back but didn´t manage to get any good photos. We also got a better view of the candlabra but only when we were well past it and the only shot I got was from a wide angle.
Paracas was a lovely little village(?), a lot of rebuilding work still going on after the last earthquake in 2001. Would have liked to have stayed longer but couldnt transfer the bus tickets. Weren´t leaving until 5 PM so had plenty of time to look at the stalls in the market.
The area behind Paracas is rich in marine fossils (esp. whales and sharks) and I had heard that trips to the fossil beds can be arranged in Ica but nothing was known about these in Paracas. Almost every stall had sharks teeth, both individually or in slabs and most had teeth up
to 150 x 150 mm. I should note here that fossils are generally a prohibited export from Peru.
Most had minerals as well but usually only quartz with the odd bit of pyrite but 3 of them had a wider range but little knowledge. We spent an interesting time looking at their specimens and helping to ID them and also stressing the importance of condition in relation to price. For most of them they knew the origin which is the most important part and I purchased a few of their pieces. Later on I found a woman with a better and higher quality range of material but the prices she wanted were on a par with what is available on the internet so I passed on these.
Our trip to Arequipa was again with Cruz de Sol but this time we were in the more expensive VIP lower deck with business class seating. The curtains were all drawn and sealed when we arrived - not sure if this was to keep it dark or whether they didn´t want us to see the road we were travelling on. Interestingly, on both our bus trips our carry on luggage was
searched and passports needed to shown and checked against the passenger list. Once we had boarded, we were then videoed in our seats and told not to change seats.
The trip was 11 hours and very twisty with lots of switchbacks as we were rising up to just over 2,000 metres in Arequipa.
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