Boondock Puffins

Waiting to get on the overnight bus, a lady in the queue behind us said “wow, you’re going to Ica? There’s been loads of earthquakes there recently!”. This did not inspire a huge amount of confidence for the trip, particularly as it came in the wake of a rather nerve wracking hunt through the local bus station that was packed with Peruvians bustling onto their normal commute (even late at night) only to find that we were in the wrong station and having to lug our bags with us across a few streets to the correct bus station just in time for our departure.

This was made all the more stressful by the fact that it turns out long-distance bus journeys in Peru are treated almost like plane journeys. Your luggage must be checked in in advance, you have to measure your amount of hand luggage and your passport also needs to be checked. Having successfully passed all these checks, we made it onto the overnight bus, settling ourselves in for what was supposed to be a 9 hour journey.

As with many of our transport experiences in Peru, it did not go 100% to plan, but this was not the fault of the bus driver – the journey ended up taking 15 hours thanks to a huge tailback created by an impressive lorry crash. As far as we could tell, there were no fatalities which is a miracle, and so we waited in the semi-luxury of the bus. If anyone decides to take this bus, we would certainly recommend the company Cruz Del Sur, and ideally you want to look for the option that has seats that recline 180° to make your life as comfortable as possible.

Once we made it to Ica, we had to once again fight our way through the taxi driver ranks before we eventually gave into one who gave us a ride to Huacachina, starting off friendly but quickly turning grumpy when we declined his extortionate offer of a guided tour in the dunes. Once we made it safely to our hotel, we settled in and went for an exploration – we can confirm that there is a lot of sand and not much else!

We watched sunset from high on the dunes, followed by a cheap supper at the hostel next door (the Bananas Adventure Hostel) – a place that has the ability to make you feel ancient if you aren’t a 17 year old backpacking gap year student. For context, we overheard a young chap sitting bare chested with loose stripy trousers telling a nice Peruvian couple about how he “had to escape from the patriarchy, because he just doesn’t deal well with authority”…

The following day we got up early, aiming for a sunrise view from the top of the dune. Unfortunately, Tom managed to mistime sunrise and so we climbed up the massive dune for 45 minutes only to sit there for 2 hours in the dark waiting for sunrise – this probably would have been fine on a clear night/morning, but we had to wait in thick fog which was very cold and something for which we were not dressed! It was, however, worth the wait as we had the dunes to ourselves and had an awesome view from the top when the sun finally did rise!

After a good walk around on the dunes, we ran down (with much more speed than we had shuffled up in the dark), found time for some lunch and headed for another bus, this time on another bus towards Paracas, which should have taken about an hour but, as fits with the theme, took around four instead. Once we made it to the bus stop in Paracas, the taxi to the hotel was relatively easy to find.

To explain our hotel choice in Paracas and how we ended up in the opposite of our usual sort of place, we should acknowledge that we picked the hotel for the night based on Booking.com’s half price deals – we ended up at a Hilton 5 star hotel. Spoiler alert: it absolutely was not worth it.

Upon arrival, the hotel reception staff were incredibly unfriendly. Combined with this, the food was hit and miss – the starters were excellent but the same could not be said for the rest of the courses. The staff also tried to charge us Peruvian tax of 18% because “that’s the option we selected” – we had to argue (quite forcefully) that on Booking.com, it simply says that this will only apply to Peruvians and there is no other option. This was eventually waived but seemed crazy that we even had to dispute this!

We had a nice walk along the beach, admiring the coast, spotting wildlife (including flamingoes!) and wild kite surfers. We decided that, if we were staying in such a fancy place, we would test out the restaurant for supper. It ended up being a fairly odd affair, with so many staff for a rather empty space who took our plates the second that either of us had set down our cutlery, before bringing the next course immediately, regardless of whether anyone else at table had finished! Thanks to some translation/communication errors, we ended up with a lot of bizarre things – I have never in my life seen so much puréed or fried potatoes in a dish before!

While we thought we were treating ourselves with our hotel, it turned out to be the opposite of almost all our ideals. For example, there was “evening entertainment” put on by the resort each night. This continued late into the night with an excessive amount of volume – think walls pulsing to sound of DJ set. There was no way to avoid the racket and so a couple of nights with headphones in was the only way to get some sleep.

Music in the hotel was actually a bit of a theme for providing us with unwanted amusement and distraction. The speakers in the restaurant and pool area blasted a unique genre of pop songs that had been reggae-ified. Our personal favourite was a beach/reggae version of Coldplay’s “Fix You”!

Indisputably, it was a weird and unusual experience that we probably hope not to repeat, but it did at least provide us with a lot of funny memories.

As an extra aside, allow us an observation about Peruvians:

You know when English people open their phone on the tube and music blares out from a video they were just watching and they look like the ground wants to swallow them up from embarrassment? This happens to Peruvians deliberately! Watching things on full blast volume in public is not something they are at all embarrassed by (very frustratingly!). This happened all over the place during our trip, whether on public transport, at a bus stop, in a café – you name it, they will be listening out loud.

On one of our last days, following a solid buffet breakfast in the still weirdly huge and empty restaurant area, we set off on a tour to the Islas Ballestas. This was phrased as a 2 hour tour, but in reality we had to wait 45 minutes and once you get to ht islands, you only really have 20 minutes to see the awesome animals before the guide announces that time is running on and you have to head back! However, it was still worth it really – the mix of sea lions, penguins, crabs, sea birds and pelicans was pretty epic to see up close in their natural and protected environments. The sea lions thrive here because of the relatively safe waters around – apparently (for future reference), summer months (November, December, January) are best for seeing sea lions in Peru. We caught them in the off season where there are nowhere near as many but it was still great to see what we could.

Once we’d made it back to the mainland, we decided against a guided tour of the reserve. Instead, we hired a scooter for 100 /S. for the day (roughly equivalent to about £20) and went off on an adventure. It cost 11 /S. each to enter the reserve, but we would absolutely recommend it. Once inside the reserve, you are greeted by an awe-inspiring expanse of desert, entirely empty, and leading to an epic coastline. Our recommendation for the best place to go in the reserve that allows you to avoid tourists but still on beaten track is Playa Supay. It doesn’t seem to be a big stop for the main tourist groups and is a long, wide beach which you can get down to with very few people around at all. We obviously made sure to respect the wildlife and keep our distance too. There were plenty of informative signs around that give similar information to a guide and we would recommend going on your own to allow you to go at own pace and enjoy scenery in a much more relaxed and immersive way.

Of course, not everything went to plan. To add a little spice to our day, the scooter broke down at every stop (and we stopped a lot!). Eventually we had to call in a rescue before Tom miraculously managed to get it started again. The kick start was broken before we even hired it, so it was not an easy fix! Nothing like a sprinkle of stress to know that you’re on holiday.

For our last night, we decided (despite our reservations) to stay in Paracas for another night as Lima was crazy and bus schedule was not helpful at all. On our final day, we had a leisurely breakfast followed by a trip to the hotel spa – an affordable massage with a lovely Peruvian lady called Rosita was the ideal way to de-stress before returning to the real world of work. We checked out, arguing about a ridiculous fee charged for laundry which we had not been told about, gave up and went for a walk with the flamingoes one last time.

We had tequenos on the beach for lunch and headed to the bus station. Once there, the woman on the desk ignored us til we said ‘Ola’. She then looked up and silently pointed us to another desk. There, the man did not help with our bags but silently stared at us, awkwardly waiting for a few seconds too long before checking our ticket. We moved to sit and wait in the totally empty cafe of the bus station but were asked to move because it was for customers only! When we finally got onto the bus, we were able to relax and recline, enjoying the Peruvian public transport for one last time on our way to the airport.

Our final view of Peru was from the bus window as we drove through the bustling nightlife of Lima, eventually popping out at the airport. One final Peruvian supper at Tanya before heading onto the plane made for a perfect end to a crazy and fantastic trip, and we went home hoping that we might one day be able to return for some more adventures in this underrated pocket of South America at some point in the future.