The next morning, oswaldo picked us up as planned. He was quite punctual which was rather Amusing seeing as we are still in Peru. Peruvians are funny like that. They will have no sense of time at all and then suddenly be punctual about certain things starting. But I suppose in that regard they are kind of catering towards the tourist population and I suppose we do expect them to be on time for things like that. We told him that we would not be camping again and he offered to store our bags at his office. Awesome. We were kind of hoping he would do that. The peruvians we have come across are very helpful like that. For example yesterday when we went to get groceries the park ranger guy offered to keep our bags there so we wouldn't have to lug them around. And no dad they aren't out to rob us; I think that they just see a lot of backpackers and are happy to help when they can.
Now I will say we payed oswaldo for a "tour" and then got in line with a ton of other folks and paid our entrance to the island. I think that we probably could have just gotten in line on our own and bought those entrance tickets. But whatever. We did what everyone does. They go somewhere and pay about 30soles for a tour and then all end up at the dock. And who knows ... Maybe we wouldn't have been able to roll up to the dock solo. And that would have sucked. But anyone going in the future, I would just try rolling up to the blue dock in paracas and see if anyone notices :)
I was slightly disappointed by the tour but I think that's how I am with tours. I feel like if I'm paying for a tour I want it to wow me. Not just feel like I could have read a book and then gone to see on my own and gotten the same effect. Now don't get me wrong, the islands were beautiful. They did not disappoint me. Just the tour was a slight let down. Plus you get on this speed boat filled with about 30 other tourists who are standing and pointing and taking photos...I'm just not a big fan of the tourist style of things.
The islands were a bird haven. I have never seen so many birds in one location in my life. It was amazing. Now the smell of all the guano these birds produce, not so amazing. The best part was seeing the penguins, just hanging out, in their own home. Now I know everyone loves zoos because you get to see all of these animals that you typically don't get to see, but personally, even though I love the animals, zoos make me a little sad. Those animals should be chilling where they want to be, not captured and thrown into some large cage in the middle of a big US city. Now the endangered ones, slightly different story...but so obviously you can imagine how nice it was for me to be able to enjoy seeing these animals sans cage. There were also sea lions!! They were just hanging out on rocks as if they were saying "what's up guys? Having a good day. Oh you're going to take a picture? Here let me turn to my good side". It was awesome. I think the best part of the boat ride/tour was the ride back. I kept seeing the sea lions swimming in the ocean. The funniest was when you saw them floating on their backs like otters would. Killer I tell you. Killer.
When we had been camping we bumped into a couple of French girls who were walking around. Very nice folks. But they had told us about a very economical hostel that they were staying at, the maku house. 10 soles. Night per person. So me and Megs definitely were going to check it out. When oswaldo met up up with us again we explained to him where we were going and he graciously walked us over. It was literally across the street. He spoke with the woman in charge and got us settled into our room. Oh oswaldo: such a nice and helpful dude. The hostel was hysterical, ran in your typical Latin American style. There's a guy working on a boat in front; they live behind the communal kitchen; and there 2 year old lumenica is running the show, along with her younger sister, though she's confined to her walker which can't leave the kitchen. But they were extremely nice, no hot water but it wasn't quite freezing, and it's 10 soles; that is like $3 a person....can't really complain for that price.
Our time in paracas seemed like it dragged on forever. There is nothing there. Though we did stumble upon this really cool woodcarver artisan. He was super nice and made everything by hand. And he had a story for every piece he made. I bought his awesome metal cuff with a large spider line drawing etched into it and he told me this whole tale of he significance of he spider. Now you have to admit, that kind of guy is worth spending you're money on. I have tried to make it a point only to buy handcrafts from those that I actually see making them. It's kind of tough. A lot of the stands are just your typical tourist crap. Paracas was what Meg and I liked to call the wings of Peru. :) but not our guy. He was pretty awesome.
No comments:
Post a Comment