A Full Day in Paracas, Peru! (Where?)

Our stop in Paracas, Peru was one perfect example of having something fall into your lap and being more than pleasantly surprised. The Traveller in all of us has heard about many of the places that we’ve all visited over the years. It’s these better-known places that whet your appetite for travel…… they actually get us off the couch and get us going…… and it’s then that we find that the side-trip becomes the most memorable!

                        When we booked this Cruise, the object was to spend another 51 days at sea, go around Cape Horn in a hurricane, and see some sights along the way. Peru has been just delightful, our day with Sandra in Lima was perfect…. then we sailed into Paracas.

                                    Where?

                                    Paracas!

                                    Where??

              You know…. Paracas….down in the Pisco Province!

            Oh…. right…. Ok…. that Paracas…. Got it!……. Where???

            I recommend a map at this point…. Go ahead…..I’ll wait.

                        Just an overnights sail southward brings us to the tiny little village of Paracas whose population quadruples when a Cruise Ship pulls into their little Container Port. At this point the obvious question is why Paracas. It’s not a great location…. it’s right on the edge of the Atacama Desert which runs from Chile up to Peru and is one of the driest places on the planet.

Remember Lima with less than a half inch of rain per year?

Well, Lima looks like Noah used it as his home port when compared to Paracas!

Paracas is the gateway to the Ballestas Islands and the Paracas National Reserve. There is also an offshore fuel transfer station and a fish processing plant, mainly for fish oils and the like.

                        We had another outstanding Tours by Locals, this time with Karina. She was to show us all around this area, again sans crowded buses. We were picked up right at the Ship because just recently the Tour Guides were allowed access to this smaller Port instead of the fiasco like Lima where we needed to take the Shuttle out of the Port and into town. From our Port we headed around the bay and arrived in Paracas, whose sole existence seems to rely on a lot of folks coming here to play. There is an extensive desert playground suited for dune buggies and the like and the Islas Ballestas can only be seen by boat (no landing there, it’s part of the Reserve). This is by far the most popular activity to do judging by the multitudes of boats loaded with about thirty (or so) curious passengers…. and there were probably about twenty-five of those boats plying the waters between the village and the Islands, about seven miles away. Each boat makes several trips a day.

                        I watched these boats depart with umpteen-plus passengers each fighting for the coveted “outside, on the rail position” for best viewings and decided we could do better. I asked Karina to find out how much it would cost to have our own boat. This is where that VCF (Value vs Cost Factor) comes into play. Getting a boat that normally holds a “boatload” of passengers and going out with only three aboard is going to cost extra…… but, when the captain’s sole mission is to get these three passengers into spots that he wouldn’t bring an entire boat into, and the fact that we had every “outside, on the rail” seat entirely to ourselves… well, I’m just going to let the photos speak for themselves and let you be the judges as to if it was worth it or not!

                        Karina was quite happy and thrilled because she had never taken a private boat out to the Islands! The village sits on a large bay and the Islands are outside the bay about four miles offshore. The ride through the bay, and past the Majestic Princess, was quite smooth.  We stopped at a navigation buoy that had several sea lions sunbathing on it.

Our next Point of Interest was on our way out into the ocean. There, up on a great sloping dune, sat what is locally known as the “Candelabra”. This ancient etching is believed to be about a thousand years old and barely anything is known or verified about it. (Think of the Nazca Lines only over here.) It measures 120 meters by 80 meters and the furrows are several feet deep. After that point, the ride became a little rough 😊until we approached the group of several islands where both we, and the waves, slowed down a bit.

                        These islands have been the home to countless species of birds for thousands of years. I can’t imagine how much guano was harvested by the lucky first guy who came upon them! Now that harvest occurs every seven years and is coordinated by the Peruvian government, the old equipment is still being used to this day and is highly visible.

                        The waters in and around these rocks and islands is quite tumultuous and it was then when I appreciated the fact that Christian (our Captain) had made us all don life vests soon after we left the dock. Christian deftly maneuvered his boat in and around small coves and passageways getting us as close as he dared to the little critters that inhabit this archipelago.

The ride back to the dock took about thirty minutes and by then the winds had picked up a little more. I felt sorry for the multitude of passengers that were still waiting on the docks to board their boats for the outbound voyage. Those would be the last boats of the day as it just gets too rough in the afternoon for anyone to venture out safely.

            Still rocking, we did our best to walk back to our Land Vehicle and drive to our next stop, a very local, family-run enterprise of textile weavers, makers, and jewelry artisans. We were given a very complete synopsis of both textile and jewelry making, complete with great examples of each step along the way. This is the part where I wish that we had lots of room for “Items for Purchasing” because what we were shown was just incredible stuff, and I would have procured many a piece if it were possible. (I did make one little purchase!)

                        After bidding adios to our new artist friends we drove out of town and into the desert. Maybe that deserves a better explanation. The town is in the desert, and we drove out past where the town just stops, the desert was there all along!

                        The Atacama Desert is the driest non-polar desert on earth and even though we are in what is considered the fringe of the Atacama, it was still really dry! This is evidenced by the evident evidence namely the evident lack of evident evidence.

Got it?

Read: There’s nothing there.

Unless you consider that nothing is a thing then there is something there, but not an evident something.

Got that?

Here are the photos for proof.

                        The weirdest part of this is that the ocean is right there!

                        Right next to this water-starved desert!

It is quite bizarre.

Karina took us to all of the important desert places, all within the Reserve, and explained the history and science behind everything that we saw. From the Plate Tectonics to the Paleozoic fossils and on to the make-up of the different local sands, she gave a great understanding of what marvels of geology and geography that are at work here.

                        We were deposited back at our Ship in plenty of time to get a snack before dinner. Hey! ……..we never stopped for lunch…. Too much to do and see!

                                    Hopefully you can get the sense that we really enjoyed Peru, it is definitely one of the friendliest places that we’ve had the pleasure to visit and have the chance to get to know someone!