Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Paracas and volunteering
With airplane from Cusco to Lima and directly south to Paracas. A small beach town known as "poor mans Galapagos", because of its rich animal life in the sea. On a short boat trip you would see plenty of sea lions, penguins, sea birds, red crabs and if lucky also dolphins.
In Paracas the sun always shines! It's incredible, but it never rains (like never never) and all my 10 days was therefore with blue sky and sunshine. It's also desert zone with sandy, dry and gol landscape inland, but I enjoyed the climate a lot as always when I'm by the sea.
Here I was a volunteer at a hostel called Paracas 360 Eco Hostel. The place opened in December and not fully up and running yet, so I joined three other volunteers and our job was mainly to get things ready for next high season. So we painted furniture outdoor most of the days! It was very nice job. Beside that we would run the bar after a short bartender class, mostly making drinks for each other as we didn't have so many guests, but trying to make the bar alive at least.
Monday is day off for all employees at hostel, bar and restaurant, and the hostel owners decided we all should go for a trip to the nearby reserve, where we went to a museum, saw Playa Roja which is red of magma stones and relaxed at a beautiful beach La Mina, where a big group of dolphins chose to drop by. Wonderful sight!
Volunteering gave me accommodation and three meals a day, where dinner would come from the Italian restaurant next door, with the same owner. Very delicious food, but a little too many pizzas for my taste - what a luxury to say!
The work was very relaxed and we would manage our own time, so we could go for sunsets on the beach or watch movies in the small 6-seats cinema in the hostel or simply relax in a hammock or play with the sweet hostel dogs.
Being back in a working situation was interesting for me. It didn't take long before my eyes starting to see "things to be done" and my mind creating "business ideas and potentials". I won't say I miss working, but I did like the feeling contributing to something bigger. Enjoyed organising, make things come together and working as a team to reach a common goal.
My list of things was written down and handed over to the owner who highly appreciated my thoughts, so I haven't lost my sense of business yet it seems.
It was not my last time as working or volunteering during my trip, and luckily there is many opportunities for doing that out here and thanks to the website WorkAway it's easy to find.
Not long from Paracas is Nazca and the famous Nazca lines. I took a day trip there to go on a small 6-person airplane flying over the lines to get the absolute best view. Beside being air sick for half an hour I really wondered what created these massive drawings and why no weather or just time have made them disappear. "Aliens" had been mentioned several times since I reached the coast of Peru, but I lean towards Incas instead, without anyone knowing the answer and never will.
- comments
Thomas Exciting!!!!