To get from Lima to Cusco, I boarded the Peru Hop bus, which makes a bunch of stops along the way, and you can stay as may or as few nights in each place as you want. First stop: Paracas. Well, actual first stop, an old mansion somewhere on the way to Paracas. What is now a beautiful hotel used to be a plantation home which had secret slave tunnels for sneaking slaves into the house without paying taxes on them. We got to walk down in the tunnels, and at one point all turned off our flashlights to feel what it would have been like to try to navigate the tunnels as a slave. Unpleasant, needless to say.
Paracas is a small beachside town without much going on besides a bustling tourism industry based on the nearby Ballenas islands and sand dunes. The first day we arrived, I had "lunch" (I guess that's what you call it at 4 PM) with some people from the group and then stretched my legs with a walk along the beach after sitting in the bus for almost 11 hours.
Sunset in Paracas
I stayed at the Kokopeli hostel, and have no idea why I booked it because I imagine the reviews I would have read would have mentioned that it was a total party place. They had a loud party going on until about 4 AM, so I didn't sleep very well that night! The next morning, we boarded a boat to visit "the poor man's Galapagos" - the Ballenas islands.
On our way to see some wildlife!
The islands are famous for being covered in bird poop, which is apparently so valuable there was actually a war over it! Today, small boats take tourists there to see the birds and sea lions. We were lucky to visit during summer, when the sea lions have their babies- we passed by one beach that was completely covered in sea lion moms and pups. So cool! The island are also supposed to have penguins, our guide pointed one out, but I'm not totally convinced it was a penguin.
It's impossible to tell, but the beach is covered with sea lions
Sea lion striking a pose for us
After the boat tour, we hopped back on the bus for a short tour of the Paracas National Reserve. I had no idea what to expect from the reserve, but was surprised to see it was a really striking landscape where the desert meets the ocean.
The "Red Beach"
After snapping all of our photos, we carried on to Huacahina, just an hour or two from Paracas. Huacahina is a little oasis town in the middle of the desert. Like Paracas, it felt a bit just built around tourism, which isn't my favorite atmosphere. The main tourist activity there: riding a dune buggy to go sandboarding! I'm pretty much just signing up for all the activities offered (especially since they're usually $15 or less), so joined up on this tour as well, once again not really knowing what I was in store for.
Huacachina, a real life mirage!
The dune buggies are TERRIFYING. Or really fun if you love feeling like you're going to die in a desert car crash at any minute. It's like a roller coaster, but in an open dune buggy. The drivers, who I can only hope are experienced, drive like maniacs, racing up and down hills and skidding to a stop inches from selfie-snapping tourists.
I'll take over the driving from here
Once we reached our destination, it was time for sandboarding. Well, it was time for that for everyone but me because I'm a chicken. Sandboarding is kind of like sledding, but in the sand. Most people go down on their stomachs because it's too dangerous for novices to go down standing up, except on the smallest of the hills. I pretty quickly remembered that I hate going fast down things, so instead volunteered to take everyone else's photos. No regrets! Check out one of the girls from my group:
After the main event of sandboarding, we had a crazy drive up to a quiet spot to watch the sun set and take some epic photos.
It was actually super windy, that's why my hood is blowing over my face
That night I stayed slightly off the main tourist drag at a place called the Upcycled Hostel. It wasn't one of the partner hostels of Peru Hop, which I actually really enjoyed. It was nice to get away from the group for a little bit and meet some other travelers. The owner of the hostel was amazing- he chatted us up and made us feel at home. Plus I had a super comfortable room, so I made up for the bad sleep the night before!
The next morning it was up early again to check out the famous and mysterious Nazca Lines. The lines were made by a pre-Incan society, but nobody has definitively discovered their purpose or how they were made, as they can only really be seen from the sky. Peru Hop doesn't officially go there, but they helped some of us set up the tour. I took the local bus with 3 other gals about 3 hours to Nazca, where the small airline picked us up.
We arrived at a tiny airport, which only serves the purpose of flying tourists over the site in teeny tiny planes. First we all had to get weighed- which I don't recommend after two months of eating indulgently every day. Then we went through "security" and boarded the six-seater plane (plus two seats for the pilots).
Smiling for a selfie before takeoff!
The planes fly at a fairly low altitude over the lines, and to give you a view of them, they basically tilt at 90 degrees so that your window is looking directly over the lines. Even though I knew that it was probably safe, when your plane is parallel to the earth, you can't help but feel like it's going to crash. So once again, TERRIFYING. It's really common for people to be sick on these rides, luckily I held in my breakfast, but one guy did throw up on my flight. After this and the dune buggy ride, I think I've had my fill of adrenaline for the month!
A heavily edited photo of the Nazca lines so you can see them more easily. In real life, they're very faint and tricky to spot.
After the Nazca lines trip, we still had a good six hours to kill before the bus swung through to pick us up, so we went to one of the tourist offices to see what we could do to kill time. We ended up going on a tour to the Chauchilla cemetery, about a 30 minutes' drive from Nazca.
There are about a dozen graves from the pre-Incan peoples, with some fairly well preserved bodies (mummy feet, eeek!) Grave robbers have stolen most of the items of value, and also scattered bones around the site. What was insane to me was that the graves were completely open without any security. I guess maybe the bodies aren't very valuable? But I think something like that in the states would be a little more closely watched....if any of us had wanted to we could have easily climbed into the graves and taken stuff out! It was also really strange to me that they left the site littered with bones. There was just a random femur sticking up near the path in one section.
Mummies!
After the cemetery visit, we made a couple of short and interesting stops to learn about traditional ways of making pottery and textiles. I think they take us there to buy stuff, and we did buy stuff, so, I guess it worked out for everyone!
Dude has been making pottery his entire life
At about 7 PM, the Peru Hop bus swung through Nazca, and we hopped on for an overnight trip to Arequipa, which is where I'm writing this post!