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Our bus to Paracas was amazing, it was better than the plane we got on to Lima! It had blankets and pillows and then someone came around with a sandwich and an apple. They even had movies playing with English subtitles and the seats practically recline to horizontal, which is amazing if its overnight.
Paracas itself is a tiny fishing village with a little beach, very different from Lima. The man that owned the hostel was about 60 years old and told us all about the town, which didn't take long as its practically three streets.
We went out and got something to eat at one of the restaurants, but the meal wasn't that good and was pretty expensive for Peru. We wandered around the town which didn't take long and then relaxed in a hammock back at the hostel, where we also booked two tours to do for the next day.
We decided as this place had a kitchen to try and cook our own meal. The food shop was tiny, so we bought pasta, sauce, mozzarella and ham. The cooking wasn't very successful and we added way to much cheese, which made it really hard to eat! But we did try!
The next day we were up early to do a tour of the Ballestas islands which have been nicknamed the poor mans Galapagos. You can only do a boat tour around the island you can't actually go onto the islands themselves, but from the boat we could see penguins, sea lions and like 10,000 birds. There was bird crap everywhere but luckily none landed on us! The boat was freezing and choppy but it only lasts around 1:30 mins so its not too bad. On the way to the islands the boat stops at a part of the land where there is a Nazca line in the shape of a candelabra or cactus, it has stayed there throughout the years because it is sheltered from the wind and its a desert so there is very little rain to wash it away.
After the tour we had an hours break where we made lunch to eat on the next trip, and had breakfast. The next trip was to Paracas national park which is basically desert. There wasn't really that much to see but the landscape was cool. We stopped off at some fossils of shells and molluscs that were on the floor which were pretty cool. The guide then told us about a giant ancient penguin that they found in this area that was 1.5m tall! We didn't get to see that fossil though!
We were then told about how they export a lot of salt (for icy roads) and seaweed ( to Japan) and how the road we were driving on was also made out of salt which was cool! We saw a few beaches one which had red sand, and then stopped in a 'fishing village' ( 2 restaurants constitutes a village) where people who hadn't brought lunch ate and we tried to find a spot on a rock that wasn't covered in guano to eat our lunch.
After we travelled to a museum about the park which was quite interesting, and had a model of the giant penguin but still no bones! Outside we could also see some flamingos which we have never seen before!
After the tour we grabbed our stuff and walked back to the bus station to get our bus to Nazca!
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