Well as I said our hostel owner, acted as tour agent and organized an amazing action packed week for us, and he did it all for free.
Firstly this entailed getting up at three in the morning to catch the amazing Cruz de Sur bus to Parracas, (this bus had a hostess, two toilets flat screen TVs, WiFi, as well as a computer pod in the first class section) not to mention pillows and blankets. We arrived in Parracas where the guide he had arranged picked us up and rushed us to the port to catch the boats to Islas Bellezas.
The boats were open top speed boats packed with other tourists that raced around the islands. On the way they passed an ancient symbol carved into the side of a hill called the candelabra. Its origen remains unknown but they think it was used as a navigational tool. Or it could represent a cactus. Or some people think it was done by masons (seriously).
The islands themselves were teeming with birds and sealions and of course guano or bird sh*t which is actually a big money making industry so there are guys whose job it is to live on the islands and protect the guano.
The beach of Sea Lions
A guy in Parracas and his trained Pelican
After visiting the islands, we were met by our guide, who took us out to see the sites of Parracas national reserve.
This turned out to be a private trip in his car, and we got to see many of the isolated beaches and sand dunes of the reserve.
The red beach
There used to be a rock archway behind here but it was destroyed by an earth quake
A tiny fishing town inside the reserve.
After a long hot dry day looking at beaches we got on yet another bus and headed into the desert to the oasis town of Huacachina.
Huacacina was once a resort town for locals but has since become a resort town for international tourists. Set around a beautiful oasis lake with it’s old original architecture the rest of the town is hostels all with excellent swimming pools as it is really hot here. Whilst in Huacachina we scaled the enormous sand dune that surround the town and then took an insanely exhillerating and probably pretty dangerous dune buggy ride through the dunes with stops along the way to sand board down these insanely steep, insanely high dunes.
Huacacina from the top of the nearest sand dune- it took us nearly half an hour to scale the damn thing
The dune buggy- did I mention the seatbelts were tied on?
Sam about to sand board on his tummy
PS. I accidentally posted these out of order so there is another new post below this one.
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