Lima’s nickname is ‘The Grey City’ because the sky is always so grey. As the bus pulled out of Lima this morning I wondered how much of Peru would be like this. Only time would tell as we made our way to Paracas.

As I describe my adventures throughout Peru I will try to keep it brief. This means that I will not talk about every thing I did or every place I visited. For more pictures you can go here: https://scisned.com/travel/peru/

On our way to Paracas we stopped at this bakery and had freshly baked Peruvian bread. After breakfast we were given a horse dancing show and then we got to play a few rounds of cuy bingo for prizes. Once that was done it was back on the bus.

Cuy bingo!

We were getting close to Paracas but the sky was still grey. About ten minutes out we started to see blue skies and we saw the Sun! For the next two weeks, there would only be one day without the Sun (Machu Picchu day). Once in Paracas I would spend the next couple hours just wandering the small city and walking along the beach. That evening I would go on a sunset trek to the Paracas National Reserve. While there we would hike up the sand dunes along the coast for a couple hours and enjoy the beautiful sunset over the Pacific Ocean. Hiking was easy as these sand dunes were made of salt covered in sand.

This is not snow
Just after descending the peak after sunset

The next morning I took a boat tour to the Ballestas Islands which are nicknamed ‘the Peruvian Galapagos’ because of their biodiversity. There were not nearly as many sea lions but there were a lot more birds. islands completely covered with them. There were also Humboldt penguins!

The seas were a little rough
Arch covered with birds
Penguins!

While floating through the sea stacks we saw a sea lion doing battle with something. After watching for several minutes we saw that the sea lion had successfully caught a large fish. Here you can see it dragging its meal up onto the rocks.

Later that morning I would head back to the Paracas National Reserve for a tour of some of the different features that can be found there. Once our tour was over we got on the bus and it was off to our next destination.

This rock formation is called the Cathedral. It no longer looks like a cathedral after collapsing during an earthquake many years ago.
This red beach is caused by the weathering of the red granodiorite in the cliffs above it.