Paracas

Friday morning, bright and early we were packed and waiting for our tour bus Peru Hop. We picked Peru Hop way back when we were first looking into this trip because it seemed easy, and it is, it's a hop on hop off bus service that’s only for tourists. It makes James feel nice and safe but it is a bit like being herded around. Our first guide was a woman named Natalia, who was amazing telling us about Peruvian culture and different things we drove past as we made our way out of Lima. Due to poverty and terrorism in the country in the 80s and 90s thousands of people flocked to Lima in search of security and jobs building ramshackle houses on the outskirts of Lima expanding the city so that it took seemingly hours to get out. Peru has squatting laws so that if you fence of a piece of land and occupy it for at least 10 years then it is legally yours. Although I was not sure why anyone would want to live in this sad looking grey desert. Building standards also seem a little lax, concrete frames filled in with bricks with the staircases on the outside so that extra floors can be added when the family has more money. If the building is for a hotel, it may or may not be plastered to look fancy.

The bus took us first to look at some ruins on the outskirts of Lima, and by look I mean look out of the bus window which was weird, but in hindsight the ruins get waaay better than anything around Lima so it really didn't matter. Our next stop was an old cotton plantation that could have been in the southern united states complete with its own church , wrap around porch and creepy slave tunnels. Peru is one of the biggest manufacturers of cotton and the wealthy Spanish land owners imported slaves from Africa to work the land. The house that we visited had slave tunnels that went 100km to the coast to smuggle slaves in and avoid tax. More fun facts about Peru that we never knew. The area that we were in obviously has a large amount of African descendants that influenced the music in particular.

We arrived in Paracas itself around midday. Paracas was a fishing village until tourism became popular because of the Ballestas islands off the coast. Due to the flow of currents providing rich nutrient waters these island are rich in bird and sea life and are known as the poor mans Galapagos. The desert outside of Paracas is also a natural reserve. Apparently in the two months of summer that the coast gets Paracas is a tourist mecca for rich Lima-ites (Lima-ens?) but its now autumn and despite being fairly close to the equator a cold breeze and sea fog rolls in from the pacific and the town, which

has approximately two streets has a sad feel, and stinks like fish so for once I'm grateful that I have a blocked nose. We arrive early and our guide organises for our bus to go to a restaurant that has a vegan lomo saltado option, its actually delicious but so salty, James has more cervice so I think we can safely remove him from bowel cancer watch. We drink pisco sours. Its my new favourite drink. Even though pisco is technically a brandy, when its mixed with something I think it tastes like a nicer vodka, or a more drinkable tequila. I can't drink it straight though.

Our bus tour is weird mix of ages ethnicities and travelling styles. There are a few young 18 year olds, a few like us who are using Peru hop because it's easy, lots of Americans using Peru hop to see as much a possible in their annual 2 weeks of leave. The group that James and I end up hanging out with are the older group and I worry about us. Although they turn out to be a really fun group. We go sand buggying together in the afternoon. In reality they are little go carts and the desert around Paracas is rock hard, and we follow our guide around but it was still pretty fun, and James got more driving practise...I probably won't go in the car with him anymore. The landscape could have been mars, especially with the red glow of the sun set.

James and I being the old people that we now apparently are opted to stay in the hotel, but we met up in the hostel bar down the road for a few drinks. It was one of the nicest hostels I have seen and I was pretty jealous we weren't staying there, until later that night when our first but of travellers tummy hit and I vomited all night. There's nothing quite like a private bathroom when you end up spending most of your night in it. I don't know if it's the water or the altitude or our delicate tummies but this was the first in an ongoing saga of tummy upsets.

The next morning I was still queasy but I braved the free hostel breakfast and we headed out for our boat tour. The harbour was covered in thick fog and it was pretty cold in our open top boats. The fog meant we couldn't see the mysterious candle holder that had been carved into a hillside like the Nazca lines but we did see a pod of dolphins, loads of sea lions, penguins and more birds than you can imagine. The nesting grounds for these birds is covered in shit which is collected for fertiliser and is so valuable that they post a guard in the otherwise uninhabited islands. According to our guide Peru has the best shit in the world. The tour felt a little rushed but seeing the dolphins and penguins was incredibly. Next trip we will definitely go to the real Galapagos though.

When we got back we opted out of another tour of the desert having seen it the night before and already getting a bit sick of being told what to look at and when to look at it, instead we had another average Peruvian coffee and wandered around town for a few hours before being herded back onto our bus.

Huacachina bound...