a little walk on the shores of the pacific ocean!

On Wednesday evening, we arrived in Paracas. When we got there, it was dark and there wern't that many people around at all, but a wonderful employee of the bus station helped us get a taxi that took us to Pisco, where we were going to sleep. Pisco is pretty close to Paracas. During our free time in the airport in Nasca, God gave us the idea to make a reservation for our hotel. We called a few places and made a reservation in Pisco because the people at the tourist information center in Arequipa told us that Pisco would probably be cheaper than Paracas and that it is really close. I am SO GLAD that we made that reservation, because it would have been so very unpleasant and hard and frustrating to search for a hotel in Pisco. It was already late and we don't know our way around that town. This way, we knew that we had a place to sleep that would be good.

And it was good! We slept and then had breakfast in the morning. And after breakfast, we took a taxi back to Paracas.

Here we are at the hotel in Pisco--Hostal Villa Manuelita.

It was a nice little place! They fed us breakfast. The guy at night told us that the breakfast was included, but the lady who was at the desk in the morning told us that we had to pay for it... but she didn't tell us this until after we ate it. Oops! But after we explained that the guy told us that it was included, we didn't have to pay for it.

The drive between Pisco and Paracas ended up being longer than we were expecting, and stuffing five people into a taxi is... uncomfortable. So we decided not to stay another night in Pisco. Instead, when we got to Paracas, we decided to look for a place to spend the night. It was still early in the morning, but we wanted to settle somewhere not lug all of our backpacks around with us all day. When we got out of the taxi in Paracas, we met Alfredo.

Alfredo was quite a person. It's kind of hard to describe this fellow. But he helped us a lot! He took us to a few different hostals and we ended up choosing one of them to stay in. At first, I was a bit suspicious of him, but it didn't take long for us to realize that he was okay to follow around. He worked for the companies that do the tours to the Islands (yeah, I'll tell you about that tomorrow), and he had good deals at the hostals. If we decided to do the tour with his company, then we would get a lower price at the hostals. We decided to go with his company - it looked good. And the we also got a place to stay.

Here's the room that I shared with Amy and Sydney.

And it's called... Muca House Backpacker.

 After settling down in our rooms and making plans with Alfredo for the island tours the following day, we decided to explore!! Paracas is a beach town!! So, there's a beach there!! Hence, we went to the beach!!

THIS IS THE PACIFIC OCEAN IN PARACAS, PERU!!!!!!!!!!

There are tons (TONS) of pelicans! They are funny animals!! I like them!

As we were walking along the beach, we saw this... ball-ish thing. But, we determined, after much careful investigation, that it wasn't a ball. Rather, it was a dead JELLY FISH!!!

Pelicans on a rock!

It's us! Sydney, Amy, Emily, Fuller, and I!

And here's another picture of the PACIFIC OCEAN!!! I think it's pretty cool. This was my first time seeing the ocean. So, I took lots of pictures of it.

We heard that the enterance to the Reserva Nacional de Paracas is only 7 kilometers from our hostal, so we decided to walk along the beach till we got there! It was a lovely walk! Eventually, we got near a place that looked like a nature center or something, and a park ranger fellow told us that we actually have to enter the park on the road (we had just wandered across the desert) because there's a place where we have to pay to get in. So, we headed back to the hostal. Looking back, it's funny that we actually thought that we would be able to explore the reserve on foot!! We went on a tour (I'll tell you about it tomorrow) and the place is HUGE. There's NO WAY that anyone could really see anything at all without some sort of vehicle. Anyway, we turned around and walked the 7 kilometers back to our hostal.

After seeing that first dead jellyfish in the water, we quickly realized that the shores of Paracas were... a jellyfish graveyard! They were EVERYWHERE. I'm not joking! This is one of them! And, I now know from personal experience, that when you accidentally step on them, they slip and slide and it is difficult to not tip over.

All those things that you see? Yeah, those are dead jellyfish!

Another picture of the Pacific Ocean... becuase you never can have too many of those. But this will be the last one that is JUST a  picture of the Pacific Ocean. I'll stop at 4 because it's a perfect square.

We saw lots of dead wildlife. Here's Fuller with a dead stingray!

And here's the desert! It's crazy - there's the ocean, and then--BOOM--desert.



See those three little things out in the water? THEY ARE FLAMINGOS!!! (And, they're alive!!!) I KNOW that they are flamingos. You can't really tell in this picture. You just have to believe me. I couldn't get a closer picture because they left, but those were most definitely flamingos!!

Here's the shore in Paracas. Theres the beach on the right, and then on the left is a bunch of restaurants.

Before eating dinner, we sat on the beach and watched the sunset.

Here we are at the restaurant for dinner!!!







And while I'm on the topic of food, I should show you this picture! Before we went on our little walk, we ate lunch at a cute little restaurant on the beach. It was delicious - chicarron de pescado.



Father, I thank You so much for the oportunity that You gave us to explore Paracas and Nasca! I am so in awe of the things that You have made there!!! And thank You for the time to spend with my friends, to get to know them better, to laugh and to learn more. Thank You, Jesus!