Paracas and Kite Surfing

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.

Starik i more...

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...

Lima

On the way to Lima...as a premonition of things to come...

On the first day in Lima I was greeted with unusually warm weather and immediately felt like I was on a vacation. I suppose it's almost an unconscious reaction to feel relaxed and chill at the first smell of the ocean air and sunny weather :) I stopped at a hostel literally 3 blocks from the ocean. Liman coastline  is gorgeous. The city itself is situated on a plateau above the sea level and they've built parks all the way along on top of the clifftops overlooking the ocean. This is the type of view you get from walking along these parks.

A shot of the surfers that invade this local hotspot from all over peru.

The parks undulate and follow the coastline in perfect harmony.

Having an ocean nearby you have musonic air flow that brings the hot air from the ocean toward the land in the evenings. The cliffs force the air upward creating these currents that can be used for paragliding. And indeed they are, in the evening you see tons of paragliders perform their majestic flights with the sunset drop.

 I was really fascinated by paragliders :) it was the first time I saw them up close.

 When you launch off the cliff, it really is scary because the drop is about 80m and you don't really have time to open the secondary parachute if anything goes wrong.

 The road to the beach takes you under a bridge, through traffic and palm trees.

 Long stretches of Liman beach.

 The next day I saw something rather peculiar, the infamous Liman fog. At first I thought it was smoke from a huge fire but it didn't smell like burning, and then i realized it's just fog. Apparently, in the winter season this fog is there every day, being simply mist from the ocean and transforming Lima in the "saddest city", being always grey as the sun never penetrates through this dense layer of mist.

 By the way, I staid in a hostel called Blue House, in Miraflores, which I highly recommend. It's a small place but very cozy and the owner is an awesome person, with some deep insights into life...but don't believe me, ask him yourself ;) At any rate, my second day in Lima I grabbed a bike and went on for a ride along the beach.

 The regions of Miraflores and Barraca of lima are really flourishing with expensive and very well taken care of highrise houses, overlooking the beach. Small parks with cute coffee shops and bridges. this particular bridge on the photo is called the bridge of sighs (Most Vzdohov) called so because it is very romantic and frequented by young couples on their first date :)

 I thought this monument on one of the Liman beaches looked very cool, mimicking the mast of a ship.

Another thing you see on the streets of lima...a robot walking among cars and asking for donation :) indeed, everyone is trying to get by however they can here, devising quite ingenious ways to earn money.

 One more beach view...

 me, sleeping by the overlook on the beach :)

 This must have been among the most gorgeous sunsets I ever saw. I decided to walk along the coast toward a gathering of the local hippies on Sunday, it's called Hippy Sunday :) As i walked along the beach, the sunset unveiled with all its marvelous colors, a really magical moment.

 El Parco del Amor in Lima, probably the most turistic place in the city, everyone that I know and have been here have a picture with the kissing statue, but not very many in these colors.

 Locals and tourists alike sitting on the beach, doing their own thing and enjoying the marvelous sunset.

 I loved the lighthouse on the right and the blurred highway near the shore. "I love lighthouses and seashell things ;))"

 Finally I reached the hippy sunday gathering. this place had everything, tons of drums and beats, a few people with some sort of primordial flutes, bubens and so forth. Some were juggling, chanting, dancing, or simply chilling on the cliff top.

 However strictly at 8 the local police raided the place and called the party over. They take great care in making sure there's alwasy order in the parks. I think the city invested a lot of money building this chain of parks along the edge so they invest a lot into protecting them. Anyways, if you're near lima, visit it.