Paracas National Reserve

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Paracas is one of the driest places on the Earth, averaging about 1.6mm of rain per year. You can check out more about rainfall in Peru here. The driest place on Earth is the Atacama desert in Chile - where in some places rainfall has never been recorded.

The Paracas National Reserve is 335000 hectares and about 2/3 of that is Pacific Ocean coastal waters. While the land is very arid, the ocean is teaming with life. You can take a boat trip to observe penguins, sea lions and porpoises (we did not).

Salt bed road.
First stop - The Cathedral.
Desolate mountains.
More desolate mountains.
Arid surface close up. Taken while lying on my belly.
Coast.
More coast.
Yet more coast.
Even more coast. Note the yellowish rock, the red sand and the blue-green ocean.
Still more coast. Close-up of rocky part from the previous picture showing various algal life.
Last coast picture. There be sea lions down there. We could hear them - even see some movement, but my camera did not have enough zoom (6x) to get anything resembling a decent shot.
Fishing village. Ok, I guess this counts as coast too.
Life – not so desolate after all.
Map of the area.


All pictures are copyright of me.

Comments

Barbara said…
Beautiful pictures. I am seeing parts of Peru I didn't see when I was there. Are you fluent in Spanish? Although I imagine the Indian languages are even more widely spoken when you get outside of Lima.
August 12, 2006 9:46 AM
Kay said…
Hi Richard

Wow, obviously you had a great vacation with ur family.

And the photos are all breathtakingly amazingly beautiful.

I hope u are switched back on to normal mode after the vacation..:wink'
August 12, 2006 11:55 AM
Richard said…
barbara: Peru has an extremely varied climate all due to the effects of the Andean mountains. This time around we were only in the areas that can be described as arid and desert like. I had hoped we might be able to go north to jungle, but since I only had two weeks, it was a bit tough (especially with two little ones in tow).

As Sofia is alone with the little ones now, it is even harder for her to travel.

sassy: thanks sassy! I did have a good time. Vaction feels more like normal mode to me than the real world of working and paying bills. Sadly, I was born to be independently wealthy, but not into any wealth :(
August 12, 2006 12:24 PM
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