2017 Paracas

May 17, 2017 in Peru ⋅ 🌫 20 °C

16/05/2017-17/05/2017 Paracas and The Islas Ballestas: “The Poor Man's Galapagos”

We have been using a company called Peru Hop to get around via bus. The buses are comfortable and clean with English speaking tour guides, and cover the areas that we want to go, which has made travelling very easy (so far!).

We got to Paracas on Tuesday, where we visited Paracas National Reserve. This is an area of desert landscape, which has been reserved to protect the extensive wildlife, in particular birds. The beaches have a red sand which is because of the underwater volcanoes, which are still active. The lava causes the sand to be red. The nature reserve also has lots of archaeological significance, with remains found there dating back to 6500BC. We visited the museum and saw some of the human remains found in the site. Some of the skulls had holes drilled into them due to brain surgery, and also in the museum were the original tools used to perform the surgery... it was quite gruesome.

The following day, we took an early morning boat trip to the Islas Bastellas, otherwise known as “the poor man's Galapagos”. On this trip we saw many more birds, including vast amounts of pelicans, sea lions and one penguin. Unfortunately we didn't see any dolphins. The islands themselves were not particularly attractive, and although we have not been there, not comparable to the Galapagos Islands. The waves were particularly strong and was a little hairy given how close we were to the rocks!Read more