Paracas

Paracas is a small coastal town with an intriguing history. If you want to chill and relax this is the place to be. We are staying at Paracas Backpacker House and have already asked ol’ Alberto if we can stay an extra night because we are enjoying it so much.

The town is very tourist orientated so you can arrange many tours and excursions if you want to from here. There are many grand hotels and quite a few hostels to stay at. There are probably about 30 different little restaurants and two miniature mini-markets.

We have basically only eaten seafood dishes since we arrived in Peru. They use a lot of purple onions, spring onions and avos. Almost everything has lime juice in it which is really tasty. I wouldn’t mind some tomato and tartar sauce though but thats probably because I usually drown my seafood in some type of sauce. When you sit at a restaurant whether you are there for lunch, supper or only drinks they serve you a little bowel of fried maize kernels called choclo. It tastes like popcorn that’s not completely popped. It’s not too bad- I still prefer popcorn though (especially my mom’s).

We also tasted the famous pisco sour cocktail. It contains pisco, syrup, lime juice and egg whites blended together! (Pisco is a grape brandy made in the wine-making regions here in Peru and Chile. It was developed in the 16th century by the Spanish settlers.) The egg part of the drink didn’t sound too inviting but the combination makes a mean cocktail. For breakfast yesterday we bought fruit and milo from the little market.

I absolutely love the music they play here! It makes you want to jive.

We have gone for long walks along the beach and from one end of the town to the other. The town is surrounded by barren land and sand dunes. There are these colourful jellyfish on the shore and in the shallow waters… You don’t want one of those wrapped around your leg! We thought they looked like aliens which is quite funny now, after we have been to the museum…but I will elaborate on that later.

There are a lot of random mixed breed dogs roaming the streets. They are not aggressive but it’s a bit scary and some look quite neglected. The bird life along the bay is extremely impressive! There are thousands of birds- big and small. If you walk along the shore you can see hundreds of little silver fish doing “dolphin dives.” The birds have a ball catching these fish. Marc said if he was a bird he would want to live here, in Paracas.