After Lima I had a bit of a fiasco with
going to Mancora, and wasting 2 days on bus travel. One thing I
learned the hard way from that experience is that “there is no wind
in the summer season in Mancora to do any kind of wind related
sports, kite surfing, wind surfing or sailing”. At any rate after
that ridiculousness I went to a small village 250km south of Lima,
called Paracas. To get to Paracas you need to first arrive in a
bigger city Pisco and then make your way to the village.
This is me taking a small mototaxi,
it's essentially a motorcycle front with a cabin strapped to where
the backwheel is supposed to be, and replacing that backwheel with an
axel. The entire reason for going to Paracas in the first place is
because this is where all the kite surfing schools are in the summer
season in Peru. So I procedeed with just that, looking for a kite
surfing schools. They are not as easy to find actually, even though
there are about 3 actual schools and 3 more independent instructors
who teach themselves.
Paracas itself seemed to me like a
resort village where rich Limans had built their summer homes. The
opulence of this place is truly remarkable, with huge white houses in
the Greek style with their own ramp to the water for sailboats and
catamarans. There's also an abundance of high end hotels in the area
with a Double Tree hilton standing right on the beach and charging
over $200/night, and interestingly with mostly peruvian residents. I
think after this trip I'll despise high end hotels though, they lack
any character, any soul. Sure they are shining with opulence and tons
of service men and women that are eager to help you on your every
breath, but it's all cold and impersonal.
Instead I stayed at a small hostel in
the village called Backpacker Soler hostel. I highly, highly
recommend it. It is owned by a local family with the wife taking the
role of the manager essentially, but they are some of the nicest
people I've met during the entire trip. The entire family is very
friendly and fed me breakfast and cracked jokes with me and even gave
me a ride to the Panamericana highway when I was leaving. The rooms
are very neat and taken care of while the common space has a very
cool vibe, stuffed with desert artifacts and artisania. And the
people you meet are truly special, everyone interesting in their own
way, travelers, seekers, vagabonds...At any rate I would prefer that
to any night at the pompous Hilton.
The next day, having not yet decided
which school to go with for learning kite surfing I decided to do
some touristy things. The other thing people go to Paracas for is
visiting the Ballestas Islands, also called the “poor's man
Galapagos” :) These are islands off the coast of the Paracas
peninsula that boast tons of bird and fauna life. You do this early
in the morning so as to avoid the desert wind that starts around
noon. You see these islands from a boat only since you can't people
may disturb the natural habitat of the islands.
The first thing that you see though is
an imprint of a Candelabra looking thing on one of the sand hills of
the Paracas peninsula, it's called the Paracas Candelabre. Nobody
knows the exact date of its origin, since there are no yet known
techniques to date the origin of inorganic historic objects
(obviously carbon dating doesn't work). 3 theories exist:
extraterrestrials, paracas indigen population drawing their sacred
plant the San Pedro cactus, and pirates indicating the orientation of
the south pole as a beacon for their ships. The other cool thing is
that, although the figure is drawn on sand, daily deposits of salt
from the ocean evaporation stabilized the figure such that no
maintanance is required whatsoever.
On our way to the Ballestas islands...
the first thing you notice about the
islands is their diversity of shapes. The set of islands has been
eroded by wind and water to form these elaborated caves through the
bed of the islands.
The rocky island cliffs are
precipitated by tons of birds.
This is how a post apocalyptic Golden
Gate bridge would look like :) Seriously though, this is a dock for ships to dock to
during the yearly collection of bird excrement from the island.
Apparently they collect quite a bit of that goodness which is an
excellent fertilizer.
You also see 2 huge colonies of sea
lions in their full glory. They are actually very loud and
aggressive, it's kinda cool to see huge sea-lions getting in a fight.
The island trip itself ends at around
10 and I decided to rent a bike and explore the other tourist
attraction of the area, the Paracas Reserva. It is merely a huge
desert with some nice beaches and cool oceanview sights. The road is
just downright horrible. Without a mountainbike you're asking for a
lot of bottom pain afterwards, as it is full with potholes and sand,
looking more like a cobblestone road than a paved one.
My trusty transport in the middle of
the dunes. The desert is cool to see once, but that's about it :) The
arid wind also kills your progress on the bike blowing in your face.
The view of a beach in the reserva
Handlebar view of the clifftops
overlooking the ocean.
Riding on the clifftops
After about 1h of riding along the
shore you get to the first sight of the day, the Cathedral. This is a
stone formation eroded by the wind and the seas over centuries.
After about 1.5h of riding in the
desert you get to the thinnest point of the penninsula, such that the
2 seasides that it separates are closest to each other, in some sense
the “neck” of the paracas peninsula. All around you are sand
dunes, desert and the wind...
then I got to a somewhat populated
beach (by 1 couple :) where they agreed to take some pics of me in
the water. The beach is called “red beach” because apparently the
water washes volcanic particles on shore that have a red tint and
thereby paint the beach in a red color.
Nearby there is a small fishing village
Lagunillas where I was advised to try some fresh fish and cevice.
Guess what, at the entrance to the village I saw an old abandoned
fishing boat with the name “ivanova” :) the russians announce
their presence in each corner of the world.
The road back winding between
sand-dunes.
The next 3 days I finally got what I
came for in Paracas in the first place all the way across Peru, kite
surfing school. This was really, really awesome! I gotta say though
that kite surfing is an addictive sport, so after getting into it
expect to cash out on your own equipment :) at any rate Paracas is a
place of constant, steady wind in the afternoons in the Santo Domingo
bay attracting kite surfers from all over Peru and even nearby
countries. These guys are really good, I have to say!
Here's me with all my gear, looking pro
although I can barely control the kite at this point :)
Some pros surfing away...
On the 3rd day I could actually get up
out of the water and start planning. This is me trying to keep the
kite at 12 while strapping onto the board.
Immediately after getting up out of the
water...
Coming back to shore... One thing about
kite surfing, that makes the learning curve pretty steep is that once
you get up from the water you start planning on it immediately. That
means going really fast! In wind surfing you take it slow first by
getting a big board and small sail and you slowly build up speed,
here though there is no slow because all the boards sink and the kite
has a mind of its own. So overall I thought learning kite surfing
would be easy … nope it is not! But it is so worth it!!!
Flying full speed...
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