June 11th - Paracas II

Greetings again from Paracas. Last night I learned that even sleepy fishing villages love to salsa. Not that I was there, borracha y bailando, but the music was, shall we say, audible from my hotel room until at least 4am. Oh, and the chorus of local dogs on top of it made for an interesting night. But I pulled out my trusty earplugs and slept just fine. In fact, I slept so well that I slept straight through my alarm. I woke up on my own at 7:30, with15 minutes to get ready and make it to the agency for my morning tour. Thankfully they're located just below the hotel. So, I made it just in time, and joined a group of 16 people or so and we headed out in a little motor boat for the Islas Ballestas. The weather today was grey on grey, but hopefully that makes my photos of birds all the more colorful. The ride out to the islands takes about half an hour, and then we spent an hour or so touring around before heading back in. The islands are really just large rocks jutting out of the sea, inhabited by scores of birds, and providing for one of the main local enterprises - guano mining. We saw penguins, boobies (yes, boobies), 3 kinds of cormorants, pelicans, and lots of terns. Oh, and there were fur seals on the beaches and the lower rocks too. It was really amazing and I took far more pictures than I should have, but what the heck. Unfortunately for all of us, it's film, so you'll have to wait until I'm back to see the shots. After we returned, I had about half an hour until the next tour. At 11am, I joined another group out front and we got into a van and drove up to the National Paracas Reserve. We started at the Visitor's Center and the J. Tallo Museum (famous in archaeology circles). The guide advised people to start with the Visitor's Center and then consider the museum as optional because there is a seperate admission. He'd been warned about me, so he pulled me aside and said to go straight to the museum so I could take my time. The museum curator had nothing else going on, so I got a private tour. It was very interesting, but honestly a bit sad to see that all they have there are remnants and the really amazing pieces have all be whisked off to other museums in Lima and Ica and Boston and the like... Nobody else in the group wanted to see the museum at all, so when I was done, I joined them in the bus and we were off again. I also couldn't get any access to the archaeological sites, which was a disappointment. But, there's always next time, right? We drove on into the reserve, which is an extention of the Atacama coastal desert that starts in Chile and stretches all the way to Bolivia, changing names along the way. It's a salt desert, and the grains of 'sand' are actually salt crystals when you examine them closely. It was both bleak and dramatic in its vastness. Absolutely nothing grows there. But, due to the Humboldt current, there is an abundance of plankton, and therefore crustacians and sea life, and therefore birds. We say flamingos in the distance (hooray for binoculars), and more pelicans and terns and cormorants, and also some dramatic coast line and rocky cliffs. For lunch we stopped in a tiny fishing village that's within the reserve and ate at a restaurant that's been there for 98 years. It was seafood, of course, and really very good (of course). On the return trip, I elected to stay in the van all the way back to Pisco, so I could check out the town and do a little business. I'm trying to figure out how to get out to Tambo Colorado. It's the best preserved Inca site on the coast and is 47 km from here or so. Every tour company lists it as an option, but nobody but me seems to want to go, and nobody wants to take one person. Sigh. I found one company that agreed to drive me there and back and pay my site admission (a whopping $0.50) for $25. It's ridiculous. So, I'm on a search for archaeology buffs. Surely there is at least one more in the Pisco/Paracas area??? I visited an ancient and crumbling church in Pisco, with a very sweet caretaker with one arm and a limp and about three teeth. He encouraged me to take pictures, which is unusual in Catholic Churches, so I took a few of the pigeons flying through and the crumbling icons, but my favorite is my picture of him. He was so proud of his church. And now I'm back in Paracas. Thankfully - it's much sweeter than Pisco. After my post, I'll head over to grab some dinner by the beach. I'm certainly getting my fill of seafood (and potatoes and rice - they're ubiquitous). If only there were coffee.... Sigh. It's shocking but the best you can find here is Nescafe, and I'm sorry, that's just not coffee. Oh well, I'm almost through my caffeine withdrawal now. I'll give this place one more day - hopefully enough to get me to Tambo Colorado, and then I'll be off to Ica and the Peruvian wine country. And as always, I'll keep you posted. Hasta luego amigos, Karen