Paracas, Peru

The last two days have been spent in Paracas. From Lima, we caught a big bus 3 1/2 hours south. The bus was double decked, with the bottom acting as business class and the top a nicer than normal greyhound style interior. Marcela charmed the ticketing lady, and we ended up in row 1 of the top, which afforded us a panoramic view of everywhere the bus went. My feet are propped up on the window in front of our seats in the photo below:

We arrived in time for sunset, and managed to get two beers. We were given an unexpected meal on the bus after we ate at the terminal, so we saved our plates and enjoyed them on some lounge chairs on the beach:

Yesterday we woke up early, found some mangos and potato chips at the store across the street, quickly ate as much as possible, and left for a day of tours.

 We visited the Ballesta Islands first, which involved a 40 minute boat ride each direction, plus about 40 minutes floating around looking at sea lions and birds. We saw a few types of cormorants, and penguins, but I didn't absorb the names of anything else. 

Our second tour was of a national reserve which was a desert meeting the Pacific Ocean. We went to a number of sites, saw fossils, beaches, great views, skipped rocks, and had ceviche for lunch. The ceviche here is served with sweet potatoes and corn with massive kernels, and is spicy and delicious. Forgot to get a picture..

We woke up today at 7am because its too hot to stay in the room any longer. Today we are heading to Huacachina, an oasis in the desert surrounded by palms and hotels. It's nearby Ica, the wine Capital of Peru, which would be exciting, except we heard the wine sucks. Instead of wine we plan on going on a 2 hour dune-buggy ride that was reviewed highly to us by an Australian we met last night. He liked it so much he went twice. Our bus leaves at 11 so i need to go shower and eat the rest of the mangoes and chips!