Lima to Paracas

MONDAY

LIMA to PARACAS followed by a desert tour.

5:30 breakfast of two slices of white bread and some jam washed down with espresso coffee.

Our trip notes said that we were taking public transport to the bus station to catch a public bus for a four hour trip south to Paracas.  I had visions of our Interlink bus service or worse so when I saw this flash coach parked outside I jokingly said to Lindsey "that's our bus", thinking that is was parked there to pick up guests from the Hilton, just across the road.

How mistaken I was.  This flash bus was just for our transfer and the long haul bus at the bus station was even flasher.

Our coach company is Cruz Del Sur and the buses are double decker with about forty seats upstairs, where we sit, and about another twenty seats downstairs.  The seats and leg room are slightly better than economy. They each have a TV set which has movies available on demand.  Useless wifi and on this sector a small snack and drinks were served.  All very comfortable.

It took the first hour of travel just to leave Lima.  Lima has a population of 11 million and it appears to us that a good percentage live on subsistence.  There were hillsides covered in favelas. Not unlike pictures I  have seen of São Paulo.

This part of the country gets very little rain and at this time of year Lima has a continuously overcast sky. Almost like a cold sea fog but at one or two thousand feet.

Once we left the city environs there were signs of some agriculture. Potato fields. Banana trees and many crops that we didn't recognise as we followed the coast south.

However as we got to within an hour of Paracas the terrain changed to desert with no vegetation at all. 

Four hours after leaving Lima we arrived in Paracas.  Our accommodation, which is very new, is attached to the bus station.  Paracas, it appears, started life as a fishing village but now mainly caters for tourists.

A Radisson hotel is about to be built and there is a gated community of private "summer" houses that we were told are worth between USD$400k and USD$2million.

Not worth it in our view.

After we had checked in and dumped our bags we headed off for a tour of the desert.

Our guide was Luis (#2).  A gregarious fellow (aged about 35 to 40) who has lived all of his life here and has fallen in love with "his" desert.

A surprisingly fascinating tour.  There is no sand is this desert. It's all fine rock and dust. Even though we are only 12 degrees below the equator the sea temperature is only 

15 degrees and because of this low sea temperature a cold wind continuously blows over the land.  So here we were sitting in a group in this arid desert with our wind proof vests on and some even wore their puffer jackets.

They get an annual rainfall of 20mm here.  But Luis said that his two children, 8 & 6, have never seen rain.

This is the northern most part of the Atacama desert which is the driest in the world.  We will get to see the Chilean version in about three weeks time.

At the end of the two hour tour we ended up at a little fishing village for a 3 o'clock lunch.  The food wasn't memorable but the Pelicans were.  Dozens of them were milling around the Wharf and seashore.

After lunch our next stop was a viewing area to see a few hundred flamingoes doing whatever flamingos do.

We returned to our accommodation at about five, had dinner at seven and then had an early night in preparation for a long day tomorrow.