Paracas 1

Tuesday, September 30th, 2008

Day 93 on The Big Trip. “Bus of Luxury, Bring us Paracas”

Bingo on the bus. Movie on the bus. Cushions for under our legs on the bus. What else is on this bus? Exit directions.

Paracas looks gorgeous as we pull in: beached oceans lined by houses finished and under construction. As we walk the streets undercover hostal employees already prey upon us. One joins us as we opt to walk rather than taxi the 1km from where the bus dropped us back to the town of Paracas. With our packs on, the sun and at least one person from every local business is more than direct in greeting us. We cannot walk unencumbered. As we look at hostel after hostel to find the one that suits us best, we cannot hear our own thoughts as words of offers and amenities are tossed at us like bags of potatoes. (I’m from Maine.)

Luckily, my Spanish is poor enough so that I can blur out a lot of this, but I don’t like being approached every second! Given that their livelihoods are on the line and this is how the hostels and other businesses compete, I understand their actions. In hopes of catching a break, we walk past a chunk of hostels and head towards the water. I was disappointed when we walked down the coastal stretch in hopes of finding a hostel with good views, only to find that we had jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire! We were in restaurantland. Every restaurant waiter came out with a menu and tried to usher us to eat.

Paracas lunch included a few new treats for me, and one new item on the menu for both Alisa and me. We ordered ceviche (raw fish with lemon sauce) and chicharrones de calamar (fried calamari), and shared both. The ceviche was weird to eat, but the spicy lemon sauce with the raw fish tasted quite good. As much as I liked it, I was glad to split the dish since there was an entire fish and the taste did become redundant. That’s where the chicharrones de calamar came it: the fried calamari dish perfectly complemented the ceviche dish and I enjoyed it even more – enough to order it for dinner from the restaurant next door!

After lunch we walked about 3k through the mostly deserted desert streets, with wind and dust in our face to the Reserva Nacional de Paracas. And back!

Who knows what the next partial day in Paracas will be, before we hit the road to Huacachina?!