We arrived at the cruise terminal on the Paracas peninsula near Pisco this morning at 7 am.
Our excursion was to nearby Paracas National Reserve, an area with protected desert and marine ecosystems.
Most of the area is a moonscape with no vegetation.
It is really part of the Atacama Desert— the driest nonpolar desert in the world.
At our first stop there was a trail with an overlook to Supay Beach.Please do not collect fossils (of shells imbedded in stones).Here is Supay Beach.The rocky outcrop on the left full of seabirds and guano is called La Cátedral (The Cathedral).This stop in Paracas National Reserve provided a great view of Playa Roja (Red Beach).Looking in the other direction, one can see dunes and the soft pastel colors of the sand and the soil.This beach is called Playa La Mina Pisco.
The blackish oystercatcher is a species of wading bird in the oystercatcher family Haematopodidae. It is found in Argentina, Chile, the Falkland Islands and Peru, and is a vagrant to Uruguay. [Wikipedia] I caught this one digging a little crab out of the sand at the edge of the surf.The grey gull, also known as garuma gull, is a medium-sized gull native to South America. Unusual among gulls, it breeds inland in the extremely dry Atacama Desert in northern Chile, although it is present as a non-breeding bird along much of the Pacific coast of South America. [Wikipedia]
These little gray geckos scurry along on the dry seaweed. I have a little research to do to find out the name of the specie.Almost time to leave Pisco, at about 5 pm this afternoon. The anchoring ropes are still in place but the dock workers are standing by to loosen them. Here is where we were at about 8 o’clock tonight: leaving the shores of Peru behind and sailing south towards the coast of Chile.
