Kerri

Well, the Paracas area was supposed to be our last great adventure before we got back to Lima and Rachel left... but it turned out to be pretty uneventful. There was a terrible earthquake in this area last August, it was an 8.0, and much of the Pisco and Paracas area is still compeltely devastated by its effects. A lot of the buildings here are made from adobe bricks and didn't hold up well. When we arrived in the city center of Pisco, we saw that many buildings were still just piles of bricks on the ground. It was a depressing sight, but everyone was up and about, rebuilding and doing their daily errands. Anyway, since much of the city was being rebuilt, it kind of made it hard to do anything in Pisco iself, except just hang out at our hotel. So we decided to take a combi 30 minutes south to the Paracas peninsula, where we thought we'd enjoy the beach and the Paracas Necropolis ruins nearby. However, that didn't exactly happen. After our ride squished into a tiny, falling apart van, we arrived at the port town and had some delicious ceviche (with a 10 sole discount!). After our lunch, however, things kind of went downhill. We walked a few kilometers in the hot sun (it's also a desert down there, so wasn't much shade!) trying to find a musuem listed in my guidebook as well as the Paracas ruins... finally, covered in sweat and tired, we broke down and asked for directions in a hotel, only to discover that ¨there is no museum´.... it had crumbled down in the earthquake and the ruins were off limits to tourists (? didn't quite understand why). Well then. So we grabbed another falling apart combi back into town... during the ride our driver attempted to tow another combi with a disintegrating piece of canvas rope (good guess, it didn't work) and we picked up some other people along the way, somehow managing to fit 23 people inside.

That's about all our adventures in Pisco and Paracas entailed... I told you it would be the shortest entry ever from me. Back to Lima on a 4 hour bus ride for the end of our trip together.