The 2018 Blog / July 12, 2018
Paracas, Peru
National Reserve, the Red Sand Beach, and the Poor Man’s Galapagos
Sarah here.
So from Lima, we decided to splurge on a hop on hop off bus service that has stops all throughout Peru and even into Bolivia. After reading about the occasional theft and bus hijacking on some of the public busses, we thought it was a good idea.
Little did we know, PeruHop would be its own little adventure because the very first day they ditched us and almost left without us. But we recovered quickly after we told the hostel receptionist that we missed the bus and he called them and did the dirty work for us. And at last, we were on our way to Paracas from Lima. PeruHop’s schtick is that they provide little side tours to break up the long bus rides, so we got a few of them on the way. First we saw what they call “Lima’s Machu Picchu,” which is the most misleading name because it was literally a large mound of dirt that we could only see the top of because they are building a wall around it. Next we stopped at a little bakery and got some hella good sandwiches on artisanal bread. And lastly, we stopped at a huge beautiful estate and mansion where we took a tour of the slave tunnels (Peru also had slaves from Africa back in the day) and then got served some delicious passion fruit juice.
All this would have been lovely if it weren’t for a family with like 8 kids who terrorized the bus (I thought we would avoid bus hijacking on peruhop but apparently obnoxious children don’t count). They kept running around the bus and pulling on our chairs and being loud, and worst of all, the dad asked the tour guide to turn off the movie they were playing (Love Actually) because it was “inappropriate” for the kids. Terrible.
Thankfully, we eventually made it to Paracas, a cute little beach town in the south of Peru. Our first priority was lunch, so we made our way to a seafood restaurant, since Paracas is known for its seafood dishes. I ordered a scallop pasta and Jonny ordered what looked like fried dumplings with seafood and a ceviche dip. This, however, was not enough to fill us up, so we ordered more food. Jonny ordered French fries and received exactly 12 of them stacked up in a little tower. I ordered chocolate cake. We got some looks from the other patrons but we lived our best life anyway.
Then we went on a dune buggy tour in the national reserve, where for some reason they let us drive our own buggy. Things were going smoothly until we stopped at a random place on the highway and our guide got out of her dune buggy and walked away and just didn’t come back, making us tour orphans. Luckily there was another group there so we just followed them. The new guide yelled at us (Jonny) for trying to go off-roading and do donuts on the dunes. I drove us back, in the dark, on a highway with no street lights and a narrow shoulder for dune buggies. Luckily we made it back alive and found a good pizza place, where we also found the same nice Indian family we have seen at almost every tour and restaurant we’ve been to since. After dinner and a couple Pisco Sours, we thought we’d try to go to the party hostel in town to get lit, but we got there and got too nervous to go inside so we went back to our place and slept.
Sarah on the Dune Buggy during sunset
The famous red sand beach in the Paracas National Reserve!
The next day we got up early and hopped on a boat tour of the Ballestas Islands, aka “The Poor Man’s Galapagos.” Our guide was a total legend and wore a sport jacket and a nice scarf and gave the tour in English, Spanish, AND French. Truly inspirational. On this two hour tour, we saw a ton of birds, a few penguins, and some sea lions. Sea lions apparently love this place because the water is too cold for sharks but maybe if the sharks weren’t total babies they could get a nice snack.
When we got back to town, we went to a cafe called Fruzion (where we saw the brown family again, shout out to Cam and his nice wife and son), got some amazing pancakes and a strawberry pineapple smoothie, and then went on the free PeruHop tour which took us to the exact same places we went on our dune buggy the previous night but this time on a bus and during the day. Great time.
And after that, at last, we made our way to Huacachina.
Originally published July 12, 2018 / See the Huacachina gallery
