Despite being reasonably adventurous and genuinely enjoying exploring the world, I’ve never really imagined myself as the sort of person to be found wandering through an isolated desert with vultures circling overhead. It’s too clichéd – the sort of scene you see in films but not real life. Well…
Our first few weeks in Peru were all spent high in the Andean mountain ranges, mostly greater than 2800m above sea level. But similar to neighbouring Chile, as you move to the west coast of Peru you rapidly descend towards the Pacific Ocean, where the country becomes increasingly barren and dry. Actually it takes a reasonable amount of time to descend from the Andes – we caught the night bus from Cusco down to Nazca, and spent the entire 14 hour trip being hurled from one side to another as the (very comfy) coach sped around a never-ending series of hairpin bends in the mountains. This didn’t exactly make it very easy to sleep (and if you did drop off for a few moments you’d be in danger of waking up with severe car-sickness!).
Anyway, we stopped off briefly at Nazca to recover, but soon fled the little desert town due to its incredibly high number of pestering tourist touts. And here we hit a snag. We had planned to make our way to Lima via Pisco, a small coastal town with access to incredibly diverse wildlife in the neighbouring Paracas Peninsular and Ballestas Islands. We even got as far as buying bus tickets to Pisco – except that when we were actually handed the tickets the destination typed on the front was Paracas, not Pisco. The bus ticket lady assured us that the major buses only stopped in Paracas, which was a short way from Pisco. Slightly perturbed we wandered to an internet café to do some research, and found that Pisco had been devastated by an earthquake measuring 8.6 on the Richter scale in 2007 – a year after our Rough Guide to Peru was published! The town was now more or less rubble, with variable reports as to whether any hotels were left standing, and numerous rumours of a dramatic increase in crime. Great.
Luckily with a bit more digging around we managed to find some reports that a small port called El Chaco just south of Pisco and right next to the Paracas reserve was now the best place to stay in the area. So we shrugged, found the telephone number of a the small Hostal Santa Maria and booked a room. This turned out to be one of the best make-shift choices we’ve made in South America. We were met in El Chaco when the bus arrived by a man from the Hostal, who gave us a fun lift in a dune buggy! And the actual Hostal itself was one of the nicest we’ve seen in this part of the world – very clean, constant hot water, and it even had a restaurant attached serving delicious fish or chicken dishes. Better still, El Chaco (or Paracas as it is now sometimes called) turned out to be a lovely lively little coastal town with a pretty beach and good access to the Paracas Peninsular, although I suspect it will be a much bigger place in a few years time looking at the amount of construction work underway just inland or along the coast.
We were pretty pleased with finding an El Chaco that had recovered well from the earthquake, but we felt even luckier when we discovered that we had arrived on the day of the Annual Pisco Sour Festival! This effectively meant that a large hotel / apartment complex was given over to festivities for the entire afternoon… so you were welcome to wander in free of charge to listen to local music, watch weird dances, and sample the delicious national drink of Peru free of charge. As Gary and I both like Pisco Sours a lot, and the ones available were the best we’ve had in Peru, it was a very pleasant afternoon!
The next day we visited the Ballestas Islands by catching a small boat from the El Chaco harbour. This was truly amazing. These islands are hyped as being second only to the Galapagos in terms of density of wildlife in South America. As you approached the dramatically arched and cave-ridden lumps of white rock the entire surface seemed to be crawling with insects. Move a little closer and you realise there are no insects – just hundreds of thousands of birds! Pelicans, turns, vultures, gulls, and even sweet penguins! The perch everywhere, no ledge or outcrop is left unoccupied… unless a sealion has taken it for a resting place of course. The small beaches and caves of the islands were absolutely teaming with South American sealions, some of which swam out to meet the boat! One beach was particularly fascinating, as the mother sealions used it as a nursery. In between the adult monsters were hundreds of tiny sweet pups, many obviously trying to avoid having swimming lessons with Mum!
Our last day was spent exploring the Paracas reserve. We hired bicycles from another Hostal in El Chico and cycled 6km to the edge of the desert peninsula reserve where we took a brief break to watch a flock of flamingos in the bay before heading on into the desert. It took a reasonably energetic ride through the dramatic landscape to reach the tiny fishing village of Lagunallas on the far side of the peninsula. Here we rewarded ourselves with cold drinks and lunch (very fresh fish of course) before wandering along the coastline, gazing a flocks of pelicans and gulls, sealions playing around the boats, and at the vultures circling overhead! It is a magical place.
Anyway, now we must move on to our last stop in Peru, the capital city of Lima. From there we fly to Mexico, where we hope to swap Inca ruins for Maya pyramids for our last month of our trip around the world.
Our first few weeks in Peru were all spent high in the Andean mountain ranges, mostly greater than 2800m above sea level. But similar to neighbouring Chile, as you move to the west coast of Peru you rapidly descend towards the Pacific Ocean, where the country becomes increasingly barren and dry. Actually it takes a reasonable amount of time to descend from the Andes – we caught the night bus from Cusco down to Nazca, and spent the entire 14 hour trip being hurled from one side to another as the (very comfy) coach sped around a never-ending series of hairpin bends in the mountains. This didn’t exactly make it very easy to sleep (and if you did drop off for a few moments you’d be in danger of waking up with severe car-sickness!).
Anyway, we stopped off briefly at Nazca to recover, but soon fled the little desert town due to its incredibly high number of pestering tourist touts. And here we hit a snag. We had planned to make our way to Lima via Pisco, a small coastal town with access to incredibly diverse wildlife in the neighbouring Paracas Peninsular and Ballestas Islands. We even got as far as buying bus tickets to Pisco – except that when we were actually handed the tickets the destination typed on the front was Paracas, not Pisco. The bus ticket lady assured us that the major buses only stopped in Paracas, which was a short way from Pisco. Slightly perturbed we wandered to an internet café to do some research, and found that Pisco had been devastated by an earthquake measuring 8.6 on the Richter scale in 2007 – a year after our Rough Guide to Peru was published! The town was now more or less rubble, with variable reports as to whether any hotels were left standing, and numerous rumours of a dramatic increase in crime. Great.
Luckily with a bit more digging around we managed to find some reports that a small port called El Chaco just south of Pisco and right next to the Paracas reserve was now the best place to stay in the area. So we shrugged, found the telephone number of a the small Hostal Santa Maria and booked a room. This turned out to be one of the best make-shift choices we’ve made in South America. We were met in El Chaco when the bus arrived by a man from the Hostal, who gave us a fun lift in a dune buggy! And the actual Hostal itself was one of the nicest we’ve seen in this part of the world – very clean, constant hot water, and it even had a restaurant attached serving delicious fish or chicken dishes. Better still, El Chaco (or Paracas as it is now sometimes called) turned out to be a lovely lively little coastal town with a pretty beach and good access to the Paracas Peninsular, although I suspect it will be a much bigger place in a few years time looking at the amount of construction work underway just inland or along the coast.
We were pretty pleased with finding an El Chaco that had recovered well from the earthquake, but we felt even luckier when we discovered that we had arrived on the day of the Annual Pisco Sour Festival! This effectively meant that a large hotel / apartment complex was given over to festivities for the entire afternoon… so you were welcome to wander in free of charge to listen to local music, watch weird dances, and sample the delicious national drink of Peru free of charge. As Gary and I both like Pisco Sours a lot, and the ones available were the best we’ve had in Peru, it was a very pleasant afternoon!
The next day we visited the Ballestas Islands by catching a small boat from the El Chaco harbour. This was truly amazing. These islands are hyped as being second only to the Galapagos in terms of density of wildlife in South America. As you approached the dramatically arched and cave-ridden lumps of white rock the entire surface seemed to be crawling with insects. Move a little closer and you realise there are no insects – just hundreds of thousands of birds! Pelicans, turns, vultures, gulls, and even sweet penguins! The perch everywhere, no ledge or outcrop is left unoccupied… unless a sealion has taken it for a resting place of course. The small beaches and caves of the islands were absolutely teaming with South American sealions, some of which swam out to meet the boat! One beach was particularly fascinating, as the mother sealions used it as a nursery. In between the adult monsters were hundreds of tiny sweet pups, many obviously trying to avoid having swimming lessons with Mum!
Our last day was spent exploring the Paracas reserve. We hired bicycles from another Hostal in El Chico and cycled 6km to the edge of the desert peninsula reserve where we took a brief break to watch a flock of flamingos in the bay before heading on into the desert. It took a reasonably energetic ride through the dramatic landscape to reach the tiny fishing village of Lagunallas on the far side of the peninsula. Here we rewarded ourselves with cold drinks and lunch (very fresh fish of course) before wandering along the coastline, gazing a flocks of pelicans and gulls, sealions playing around the boats, and at the vultures circling overhead! It is a magical place.
Anyway, now we must move on to our last stop in Peru, the capital city of Lima. From there we fly to Mexico, where we hope to swap Inca ruins for Maya pyramids for our last month of our trip around the world.
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