PARACAS
A DAYTRIP TO
WHAT TO DO 1 DAY IN PARACAS
I could write you a list of top 5 things to do in Paracas including going to the city beach and eating ceviche but to be honest I don’t think you need a list for those things. So here are the three things I think are a must do in Paracas.
1. VISIT THE ISLAS BALLESTAS
When you read this you think she recommends me to go there and hasn’t been there herself, wtf. But we were just on the Galapagos Islands and from everything I read about the Ballestas Islands I didn’t think it would be worth our money to see the same kinds of animals again.
But if you haven’t been to Galapagos and are not planning to do it, because you are only traveling in Peru, please check them out. Seeing these animals in their natural habitat is amazing.
2. VISIT PARACAS NATIONAL RESERVE
Rent a scooter and go to the national park
I read so much about renting a bike very early in the morning and riding through the national park. This is only possible if you stay in Paracas, which we didn’t do. But looking back on our trip I wouldn’t do this even if I start in the middle of the night. There is NO shadow in the whole park. But let's start at the beginning.
We took a bus from Ica at 9am and arrived in Paracas an hour later. We went for a small second breakfast while it was already over 30 degrees outside and no clouds. Somehow the forecast said there will be clouds.. But obviously you can’t rely on that.
It didn’t take us long to decide to rent a scooter. We didn’t even need to show a drivers license. They wanted to have a document for security so make sure to bring sth to give them. An ID or a drivers license or if nothing works just leave a credit card :)
The streets in the park are really bad. The bike lanes are even worse than the streets. And the park is huge, and as I mentioned before no shadow, nowhere. There are several possibilities to go down to the beach and take a bath but the water is really cold.
Bring enough sun cream! So we took our scooter to all the stops in the park. I think it took us about 2 hours. Just imagine how long it would have taken us by bike. We saw a few people and I really felt sorry for them struggling so much in the heat.
Here is our route:
We started going down to the beaches playa El Raspón and playa Las Minas. Both are beautiful to relax and have a quick swim in the refreshing water.
After that we rode to the playa roja, you can’t enter the beach area due to animal privacy. But the views to the cliffs over the beach are amazing.
So we continued up the cliffs and chased perspective.
After that it was a longer ride down to La Cátedral”.
And the last beach playa Supay, where you can go down again but they strongly advise not to swim here as there are strong currents.
After that you can ride the same way back or take another road back to the exit of the park, the road was really bad and bumpy. I was so glad once we were back on a normal street.
3. EAT CÉVICHE
After returning to Paracas we stopped at a small restaurant in a residential area which had great google reviews. [Pukasoncco]
It was a room in front of a private house, we walked through the gas door and there was no-one, but it was clearly open so I walked down the hall until I found someone. The Chef was really nice, and gave us the menu.
We ordered twice the classic ceviche (what else ;) ). Before he started with the preparation he showed us the fish. The ceviche was truly delicious.
