Paracas, Peru

I am on my own for a week, in between friends that I have convinced to come down and visit me. I decided to spend my week exploring the south coast of Peru. My first stop is Paracas. Paracas is home to the Reserva Nacional de Paracas and Islas Ballestas. I arrived Sunday morning on a bus from Lima. I was greeted by the Senora who ran the tourism company, after asking what my name was and where I was from, she went for the life questions.

"How old are you?"

"I am 23"

"How many kids do you have?"

"None"

"None! Are you married?"

"Nope"

"Well you need to find a husband and start having kids. Did you come to Peru to find a husband?"

This conversation was going nowhere good and fast. Thank the lord the other tourists showed up, or so I thought. I was the only non-Peruvian on the tour and the Senora took it upon herself to introduce me as the white, American who doesn't have any kids or husband and is 23. The van couldn't drive away fast enough! It was quite amusing though, there was one little girl on the tour who decided she should practice her English on me and would run by me saying "kitchen" and "teacher." I am guessing those are the only words she knew in English because she kept saying them over and over as she walked by me.

The Reserva was more of a series of lookout points. There use to be a rock arch formation off the coast that they called "El Cathedral" but it was destroyed in the massive earthquake of 2007. There are pictures of what it use to look like. Now it is just a mountain that sticks out of the water. We continued farther down to see the one red beach in the park. The rocks around this section of beach are very high in iron and the currents bring the water into this cove, forming the only red sand beach. The last stop on the tour was a little beach were the locals played in the sand and water. I am not sure how they were in the water because it was FREEZING! I decided to skip the swimming part and have lunch at one of the restaurants. I had a delicious seafood ceviche, and watched the pelicans beg for scraps at the door of the kitchen.

Monday I went on a tour of the Islas Ballenstas also known as the "poor mans Galapogas tour." We first boated by the Candelabra, which has been carved into the rock hillside (pictured). This 150 meter high and 50 meter wide geoglyph is as mysterious as the Nazca Lines. The next stop was the islands. The islands were filled with sea lions who had just given birth to their babies and lots and lots and lots of birds. I don't think that I have ever seen so many birds in one spot in my life. I did see 1 penguin, buts a little bummed because I thought that we would see more. I made it out of the trip with out a single dropping of poop landing on me, however the French ladies behind me were not as lucky.