Pisco - Paracas

After Nazca we headed up the coast to a small fishing town called San Andres, which is near between a tourist resort called Paracas and another larger town called Pisco. Pisco is famous because of the Peruvian drink, that shares its name. Most tourists in Peru get offered a free Pisco sour as an enticement to enter a restaurant. Paracas is like the Strahan of the central-southern Peruvian coast and its sole reason for being it seems is to cater to tourists. This area has been subjected to a massive earthquake and tsunami in back 2007. Putting it in perspective, it was about a magnitude 8 on the Richter scale, about 500 people were killed and these pictures tell the story of the devastation. Today you see many broken or half fixed buildings and long lines of rubble and bricks beside the road where they carted most of the wreckage.

We travelled once again in a fairly luxurious bus from Nazca and arrived in Paracas on a fairly hot afternoon. Our hotel was in the next town so we needed transport and sure enough someone was there to offer us a lift. He wanted to charge us 20 soles, which is fairly steep in local terms but we didn't have much choice and accepted. After we headed towards our destination in San Andres the driver started to tell us that our hotel had been destroyed by a tsunami and there wasn't much to go to as everything was under construction.

Kim had read about scammers making similar claims in the Lonely Planet guide, and we told him that we had made a booking, and he didn't really want to accept what we were saying. He insisted that there our hotel was under construction. He was probably wanting us to stay in Paracas instead, presumably because there might have been some sort of commission involved. He nearly had us sucked in but I asked if we could ring our hotel first and he stopped by one of his friends on the side of the road that had a mobile phone. We called the hotel and the lady that worked there asked to talk to the driver. Sure enough, everything at the hotel was fine and the bloke ended up taking us there. Over here it seems, it pays to be more cautious with people that want to help you the most.

In the end our hotel was excellent and the people that ran it were very friendly and nice. It was right on the waterfront. You could see hundreds of birds in and around the water, occasional dolphins, islands on the horizon and fishing boats moored close to the shore.

It was really peaceful and scenic so we walked up the road and had a cold beer or two and took it all in as the sun set on the horizon. The intention was to come back for tea. However, when we did come back, everything was closed; at around 7:00 pm on a Saturday it was a bit surprising. So we tried to get transport into Pisco in these little vehicles that are best described as motorised rickshaws, driven frantically by blokes that look about 12 years old (seriously), but no one would take us after dark. In the end we found a taxi that would take us to Pisco, and when we got in, there were two other passengers in there also going to Pisco. It seems the taxi has to fill up before the trip got under way.

We asked the driver if he would recommend a restaurant to us, which he did. Once at the restaurant we also asked for a recommendation as to what to have for tea. What we got was something like squid stuffed with prawns, but it didn't really smell right. Both Kim and I tried some of the prawns, but we could both probably only chew the prawn twice before having to spit it out. It tasted like it had been off for days. After that the smell just wafted up from the plates making us feel more and more crook. We had to apologise to the waitress as both of us could not eat anything but the chips that came with it. She was OK about it and didn't charge us for the main meal, which was great of her under the circumstances. I'm not really sure if the prawns were off or not because anyone who has smelled fish sauce, a common ingredient in Asian cooking, might know what the smell was like. However, I was fairly crook for the next couple of days anyway, not so much in the guts, but with plenty of activity around the back door, if I might euphemistically say so. Kim was fine, but she is suffering a bit today.

The next day we took the boat tour out to the Ballestas Islands. On the first stop we saw El Cadelabro, which in English means the candelabra, another huge geoglyph carved into the ground by an ancient civilisation, the Paracas, about 2000 years ago. Once again mystery surrounds this 183 m high carving, but one theory is that it represents the San Pedro cactus, which is used even today by Shaman to induce a mystical experience in religious rituals.

After that we visited more islands where thousands of birds live. In addition you get to see a fair few seals, which the guide refers to as sea lions - I can't tell the difference. There are so many birds living here that they actually mine the 'guano' or poo. You can see loading decks and sheds on the islands that are almost white from the poo.

The islands are pretty spectacular with rock arches and jagged formations poking out of the sea.

In the afternoon we went on another tour, saw some fossils and got a bit of a spiel about how the earthquake had changed the coastline here. The guide seemed to know his stuff but had a strange accent which was somewhat amusing.

Finally we were shown some pretty spectacular coastline and cliffs before stopping for lunch.

Our taxi back to the bus station only cost us 12 soles, despite it being booked first - a 40% saving on our entrepreneurial friend that picked us up on the first day.

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