Paracas National Reserve

 November 1^st, 2021

 After a little over a week, it was time to get out of Lima.  During my stay in the capital, I worked on my itinerary for my first leg of my visit to Peru.  It seemed to make sense to head south along the coast and hit a few of the common tourist spots.  The first one would be Paracas.  During the summer, there were a few pilots who had visited Peru before and Paracas was pretty much the only place they stayed…so it must be good.  It’s located about 4 hours south from Lima, on the coast.  I had planned on booking various buses to get around the country but due to Covid, many of the bus lines were either not functioning or had spotty service.  In my research, I stumbled upon a company called Peru Hop.  It was targeted towards foreigners and was a hop on, hop off service and you could decide on how long you stayed at each destination and could change it as you went.  The primary destinations for the tour I was looking at were: Paracas, Huacachina, Nazca, Arequipa, Puno and finally Cusco.

 

The bus was scheduled to leave before 6 am and at first, I wondered why, but then the light went on, of course it was to avoid the Lima commuting traffic.  It was a full-sized bus but there were only about 14 people on board.  As we approached the edge of the city, the quality of housing definitely diminished.  Being a desert, it was a bit surprising to see where some homes/shacks were located.  There were some sandy looking hills that rose 2-300 feet high and it looked like erosion of the hills must be an ongoing battle.  It wasn’t surprising to then see some hills that had small trees planted in a grid pattern in order to establish some stability of the slopes.

Crappier houses near the edge of the city:

Hard to make out, but there are some houses at the top of this hill:

The trees planted for some stability:

Arriving in Paracas, it was overcast yet teeming with tourists, primarily Peruvian tourists.  Turns out it was a four day long weekend with one of the stat holidays called All Saints Day.  I have to admit that my first impression of Paracas was not great.  Sandra, the guide with Peru Hop, said that we had an hour to wander around before we would head out for a 2 hour tour of the Paracas National Reserve which was included with my ticket (which I was unaware of…so a bonus).  The beach seemed uninspiring in the grey weather, restaurant after restaurant seemed to offer the exact same menus, primarily ceviche (diced uncooked fresh fish which sounded a bit dodgy).  It reminded me a lot of India, although less variation in food choices than Goa.  I had planned to stay here for 9 days as there is paragliding and kite surfing here…but I immediately questioned my decision.  Okay, don’t worry Dave, let’s see what happens over the next few days.  Plans can always be changed.

 

Hopping back on the bus, we first picked up a woman, Estrella, who must have been an expert about the park.  As we drove into the reserve, about 15 minutes away, she would explain something in Spanish followed by the Peru Hop guide Evelyn, who would translate what was said into English.  I pitied Evelyn at one point as Estrella must have gone on for 3 minutes…there was no way to remember everything that was conveyed.  Just as we entered the park, I could understand a bit of Estrella’s Spanish that the water was shallow and it attracted migrating flamingos.  One could just make out these little pink specks in the distance.

The Paracas National Reserve desert:

Driving another five minutes or so, we stopped in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere and the talk was about how this area used to be under the ocean.  It was easy to see.  There were seashells everywhere.  As Estrella was explaining something about it, I was sure that I heard the word “Canada” as few times.  Turns out that the salt that is present in this area, thanks to the ocean, is shipped up to Canada for our roads in the wintertime.  Well, not the salt right here, as this is in a protected park, but in the surrounding area.  There were a few other Canadians on the bus and none of us had a clue about this…did you know we got our winter salt from Peru?!?

 It was a bit of a barren road:

The salt stop:

Our first proper stop was at La Cattedrale, the cathedral, which is a bit of a misnomer as it used to be a rock bridge by the ocean which thanks to an earthquake in 2007 no longer exists.  It was still a lovely view with some birds hanging out on the rock outcropping and some vultures soaring around.  I asked Estrella what type they were and she said red headed vultures but according to the Internet, they were turkey vultures (and looked like it to me).

Cliffs by the cathedral:

The remains of Le Cattedrale:

The occasional obligatory selfie:

Looking south from the cathedral:

Next, we visited the highest point that the little tour would visit with great vistas as well.  The tour guides stressed that a reason that this park was special was due to the variety of colours in this desert.  We saw a black beach, a white beach and finally a red beach.  All were due to a variety of minerals, primarily iron, on cliffs that are slowly eroded by the waves and then wash back up on a nearby beach.  According to the guides, there are only 7 “red” beaches in the world…I’ll have to look that up.

 The view from the high point with the Playa Rosas:

Looking back from the other side of the red beach, that's the cliff I was on with the minerals:

Pretty sweet ride...these will always remind me of India, although the tuk-tuks here are in better condition and pimped out:

It was a nice little tour, especially since I didn’t realize that it was included in my bus travel.  Afterwards, I asked Evelyn who I might talk to about getting an orientation about paragliding in Paracas.  She told me to walk down the street to the Paracas Restaurant (seemed a bit generic) and Sandra, the Peru Hop guide, would be there.  She could introduce me to the guy who would know what’s going on with regards to paragliding.

 Paracas:

Well, she was right.  I was introduced to Jose Rosas.  He was a gentleman in his late 50s, I would guess, and let’s just politely say, rotund.  He was very friendly and happy to hear that I was a paraglider pilot looking to fly.  He seemed to have many stories and in fact was one of the founders of the Rat Race, a popular cross country competition in Washington state that I have heard of.  Turns out that this guy has his fingers in many pies.  He owns the restaurant I met him in, he has a paragliding company, a kite surfing company and many more endeavours.  He gave me contact info for a tandem paragliding pilot as well as a kite surfing instructor.  It definitely helps to have connections.

 The busy beach and malecon with holiday goers:

A sunset beer:

Let’s see what happens in Paracas…

The Basilica and Catacombs of San Francisco

October 29, 2021

While in Lima I figured I’d better do something other than just paragliding and wandering around Miraflores.  So why not go check out a bunch of bones in some catacombs?

 

I decided to take on the challenge of riding the bus to get most of the way to the Basilica of San Francisco.  One of the great challenges of travelling is learning how to navigate a city’s public transit system, especially if the local language is not your native tongue.  To keep it simple, I walked about 6 blocks from my Airbnb to Arequipa Avenue, just past the John F. Kennedy Park.  I figured that this would simplify things as I just needed to take a bus about 4-5 kilometres down that road and I’d be within a kilometre or two of the church.  Yesterday I attempted this, but I was foiled when I attempted to board a bus and the driver motioned with his hand down across his face stating “Face shield”.  Damn, I left that back in the room.  Upon returning to my room I saw that it looked flyable as I say a wing in the air so I went for a flight instead of journeying to the catacombs.

 

Today I was prepared.  I paid my 3 soles (about a dollar) to the driver and he handed me a card.  There was a turnstile just inside the bus with a screen beside it and I needed to tap it with the card and return the card to him.  This seemed a bit odd…here we are double masked plus a face shield and yet every passenger who was paying cash handled the same plastic card.  Seems like a bit of a flaw in the attempt to minimize the transmission of Covid…

 Ready this time:

I got off the bus near the Palace of Justice which was an impressive building.  It was a super busy area with many lanes of traffic buzzing with cars and buses.  Walking along a street called Jiron Lampa, I could see why it had its name (lampa meaning lamp) as there was a plethora of little stores with chandeliers and a variety of lamps.  That morphed into these large 4-5 storey, mostly windowless, government buildings.  Outside one of them was a line of people which must have extended for 2-3 city blocks.  Most people were holding manilla envelopes and I found out later that they had lost their jobs and were filing complaints with the government…or something to that effect.

 The Palace of Justice:

Two unlikely companions:

I loved this fruit vendor's speaker on his modified motorbike:

Reaching the Basilica, there was a short middle-aged woman at the gate and she asked me if I would like a tour guide.  I was skeptical at first but she had a lanyard with a plastic ID card showing that she was an official guide and it would only cost about $8 for a 45 minute tour.  Sure Miriam, let’s go.  We started with the Basilica and unfortunately photos were not allowed in the majority of the church.  Miriam claimed that it was because it was still an active convent, but I didn’t see any monks so I didn’t quite get it.  In fact, the whole place was pretty quiet, there were two other guides with a total of maybe 10 tourists in the place.

 The Basilica:

A major earthquake in 1907 caused a lot of damage to the Basilica and Miriam pointed out what had to be rebuilt.  There were some impressive and ornate wood carvings in the main part of the church, many of which had an Arabic influence.  As to be expected, there were many paintings depicting saints, the downfall of Jesus, the last supper etc.  The last supper, a massive painting created in the 1600s, was interesting as it had a Peruvian twist to it such as some local dishes on the table including cooked guinea pig!  I have to admit that I found the paintings to be rather dark, not just in colour but in content.   Catholicism and Christianity in general does have a rather macabre side to it with how Jesus was treated with the crown of thorns, the crucifixion etc.  I’m not religious but if I was, I think I would choose the colourful and happier flavour of Hinduism.

I was allowed to take a few pics of the 15th century library.  It's hard to see but check out the two spiraling staircases:

I bet some of the books would fall apart if you opened them up.

The courtyard was nice:

Okay, time for the catacombs.  We descended some worn stone stairs and wandered around half a dozen rooms, most of which had some skulls or arm and leg bones piled in some sunken square sections in the floor or embedded in the walls.  Supposedly there are the bones of some 25,000 people but the majority of them must be buried underneath what we could see as it seemed like we were only seeing the tip of the iceberg.  Near the end, there was one sunken bit with bones and coins strewn about.  Miriam explained that some Peruvians think it is good luck to throw money in there, just like many cultures do with wishing fountains.  There was one skull that had a hole about two by three inches in size.  I couldn’t resist.  I fished a coin out of my pocket and attempted to hit the jackpot.  Missed by about 6 inches…damn. 

I have to admit that I was underwhelmed by the catacombs but perhaps that’s because I’m spoiled and visited this amazing church near Prague back in 1996 while backpacking after university.  It was in a town called Kutna Hora and is called the Sedlec Ossuary.  I mean, check these pics out:

The chandelier, hung down by jaw bones and skulls:

The coat of arms:

In the bottom right hand corner, a bird is plucking out the eye of a skull:

After the tour I decided to take another street back towards where I could catch a bus and I just happened to stumble upon the historical centre of town.  It was a beautiful square surrounded by some impressive buildings including the Government Palace, the Cathedral of Lima and the Municipal Palace.  I wandered around for a bit then started heading down a pedestrian only lane lined with shops back to the bus stop.  I had to giggle a bit on the bus ride back in that the driver spent the entire time talking on the phone…safety in action!  It’s quirky experiences like this that make me love travelling.

The Cathedral of Lima:

The shopping street:

Some cool architecture:

I was impressed with all of the bike lanes in Lima, especially along Avenue Arequipa...but I guess this is a common issue:

The bus driver on his phone:

Paragliding in Lima

October 24, 2021

I’m not a big fan of cities, especially large ones like Lima with a population of over 10 million!  One out of three Peruvians live in the city, crazy.  However, I did book a week in Lima because of the amazing paragliding site right in the city, by the ocean.  I used to live in Victoria and loved flying the seaside ridge along Dallas Road.  Well the site here in the Miraflores neighborhood is like that, times 10.  Instead of being 15-40 feet high, the ridge must be 3-400 feet.  Add to that a long row of tall buildings, some over 25 storeys high, you’ve got a recipe for some amazing flights.

 

The first day that in Lima, in the Miraflores neighborhood, I walked 15 minutes from my Airbnb to the “Parapuerto” (the paragliding airport).  There was a small brick fence with a closed gate preventing the general public from strolling around the take off/landing zone.  Carlos, a young Peruvian in his 20s came over and started asking me some questions in Spanish including whether I had a copy of my licence.  I had yet to get a sim card so there wasn’t a way for me to show him it.  Did I have a radio?  No, I stupidly didn’t bring one from Canada, trying to save weight and also thinking that likely no one wouldn’t use them down here anyways.  I explained that I was an instructor back in Canada, so he let me in.  The launch had Astro turf, like we installed at our launch in Lumby over the summer although it was hard packed underneath.  They had a small rectangular section outlined by a white line as an area to hang out and prepare your wing.  I dropped my bag there and thankfully an American named Jens who was originally from California but now lives here came up and gave me a site briefing.

 The Miraflores coastline:

It turned out that Carlos’ English was actually pretty good, definitely better than my Spanish, and we chatted before and after I had a flight.  He told me that he has a part time job coming down to the aeropuerto most days from 2-5pm and every 15-30 minutes he takes a wind reading and reports his observations on a Whatsapp group so that other pilots know if it’s flyable or not.  He gets paid all of $200/month (do the math, a pretty low hourly rate) but he enjoys doing it and it gets him out flying a lot too.

 The view from the Parapuerto:

I prepared my gear for a flight and Carlos’ last wind reading was 30 km/h.  That’s pretty strong for paragliding and if that was the wind speed back in Lumby, I definitely wouldn’t even be considering flying.  However, this is laminar airflow from the ocean so there doesn’t tend to be much gustiness to it…still, it was going to be interesting getting the wing above my head.  Once it’s above your head, you’re usually good to go, but to get it there you must bring it through the power zone where it’s like a sail on a boat and all the wind is hitting it and it can drag you backwards.

 

On my first attempt I got yanked pretty good, pulled backwards and slammed on the ground.  I was able to kill the wing quickly but I felt like I landed pretty hard, and awkwardly on my right foot.  The next inflation was fine, I kited it for a bit and then I was off for a 45 minute flight.  What a cool site!  There were lots of people walking along the cliffside, lots of traffic on the expressway hundreds of feet below, and lots of windows of apartments and hotel rooms to peer into.  I saw one place that looked like they had a full on bar in it even though it looked like a private residence.  I probably travelled along a 3-4 kilometer stretch.

 

Stupidly, in my haste of leaving Canada, I didn’t bring any gloves nor my GoPro camera.  I sure would have liked to have filmed what I was experiencing.  Later, it felt as though the wind was abating a bit and I noticed that other pilots were landing and I was the last one in the sky.  Jens had given me a run down on landing in this strong wind.  You had to approach the LZ from the side and have your body below the ridge, and your wing above it as you would get popped up but now this wasn’t necessary.  I made one pass and I was actually too low so I circled back, gained a bit more altitude and tried again.  Well, I never got the pop up I expected and I just eked in at the height of the LZ for a landing.  What a great intro flight to the site.

 

These videos are from a few days later.  Just shows you how dynamic it is.  There's one young pilot, Sebastian, who supposedly learned most of his skills from YouTube.  He was always there and wow, world class.  He was doing acro maneuvers like SATs, Misty Flips, back flying, helicos and more.  It was impressive and made me feel like a beginner!

While packing up there was a young boy, only 11 years old, kiting a wing.  His dad Martin had been flying and I talked with both of them.  Turns out they had been living in Sooke (near Victoria) for a few years but had moved back to Peru due to the pandemic.  Maui, the boy, already paraglides and he loves to surf too…what a cool kid.

 Martin and Maui:

I was stoked to get a flight in on my first day as now anymore flights are just a bonus…but I have a week so I hope there will be more!

 

That night my big toe of my right foot began to throb and show some bruising.  Damn, did I break my toe on day 1?!?  I put some ice on it, took some Ibuprofen and luckily over the next few days it seemed fine.

Hola Peru!

 October 23^rd, 2021

After a year’s hiatus of travelling thanks to Covid, I decided that my next destination Wandergliding would be Peru.  Last year I merely hung out in Victoria, which was great, but it was time to knock another country or two off of my list.  Most people immediately think of Machu Picchu when Peru is mentioned.  It hasn’t been a high priority on my bucket list but paragliding in Lima sure was so why not…Vamos!

Prior to leaving Canada I had to get a Covid test 72 hours before boarding the plane.  It was hard to know whether that was 3 days before getting on the plane from Kelowna to Toronto where I had a 17 hour layover, or from hopping on the jet from Toronto out of Canada.  I hedged my bets and got one 70 hours before the flight out of Toronto but the results should be ready before I leave Kelowna.  It was my first Covid test, and hopefully my last.  The guy at the drugstore in Toronto was pretty gentle but man did my eyes water, so much so that I had to close my eyes as the tears welled up.  He finished one nostril in what seemed to be an excruciatingly long 15 seconds.  I was going to ask for a reprieve before tackling the other side, but he just went at it and I just thought “Well, let’s get it over with”.  Thankfully my results were returned within 24 hours and it was negative.

 

My flying buddy Bala drove me to the airport and it was a direct flight out to Taranna (a slang way of saying Toronto).  It was a nice flight out, although cloudy over the best bit, the Rockies.  I was a bit shocked at one point when I saw a plane whipping past in the opposite direction about 2 kilometres away.  I was near the wing, and it appeared as thought it was at the same altitude.  If you know anything about aviation, eastbound planes fly at odd thousands while westbound are at even thousands.  Perhaps they were a thousand feet below us, but it sure didn’t look like it!

Somewhere over Manitoba:

As we approached Toronto, a few young teenage girls in the row behind me said some interesting things.  “Is that the ocean?” – speaking of Lake Ontario.  “I think it’s the Pacific.”  I was a bit gobsmacked as we just flew 4 hours away from the Pacific.  I didn’t say anything.  But then one of them said something rather prophetic…  Down below were cookie cutter suburbs where the houses were all similar and packed together.  “That looks like a prison world down there.”  I thought yah girl, I think you’re right on that one…all of those people tied down to mortgages that causes them to have to put up with commuting in dense traffic everyday to pay them off.  I couldn’t help but smile a bit.

Arriving in Toronto, the CN Tower and downtown is way off in the distance:

The layover in TO was on purpose so I could catch up with one of my best friends through high school and university, Slick, and hopefully another good buddy, Sid.  Slick picked me up and brought be back to his place in Kitchener.  Later, Sid and his little dog Comet came by, and it was great to catch up with those guys.  We stayed up until about 1 am which was later than I had anticipated seeing that we had to get up at 5:30 am in order for me to catch my 10 am flight.

The next flight was with Panama’s Copa Airlines all the way to Panama City where I had a short layover before hopping down to Lima.  The flights headed pretty much straight south from Toronto although Peru is one hour behind or two hours ahead of BC.  I arrived in the early evening and it took at least an hour to get through immigration.  I was asked for proof of my Covid test but I was surprised that they didn’t ask if I was vaccinated.  Additionally, the immigration officer didn’t even ask how long I planned to stay.  That was interesting since when I booked my flight, I had done some cursory research as to how long I could stay in Peru and whether I needed a visa.  Canadians don’t require one and it seemed that a six month stay was fine.  However, before the trip but after I booked my ticket, I spoke to my friend Lisa who is in Peru (I met her 7-8 years ago when I was stuck in Goa) and she stated that I’d likely be told I can only stay 90 days.  Uh oh…I had booked a return ticket for 95 days after my arrival date.  This had caused me a slight bit of panic but then I decided that I would fly to Ecuador for about a month in the middle of my trip which would solve the problem.  I originally wanted to go to both countries but Lisa told me that the land borders were closed and with Covid so that just seemed like an unnecessary complication.  Now I could visit both but it actually hadn’t been necessary for me to do so.  Perhaps a bit of serendipity.

The Panamanian coast line.  Panama City is hiding in the distance.  I was there in 2015 and it's amazing how many skyscrapers there are.

About to board the plane to Lima:

After grabbing my backpack from the baggage area, I planned on getting a sim card so that I could contact my Airbnb host Sheyla.  It was the first time staying at an Airbnb.  I approached a little both for Claro, the most popular phone carrier in Peru.  With my broken Spanglish I tried to ask for a sim but the woman said in Spanish that I’d have to do that in the city…damn.  I tried to connect to the airport’s Wi-Fi to contact Sheyla but I had technical difficulties connecting to the Airbnb webpage.  Well, I had the address so I decided to just go for it and got a taxi into Miraflores, the posh seaside neighbourhood which would be my home for the next week. 

From reading the reviews of the place on Airbnb, I knew that it was on a closed off street that only allowed pedestrians so the taxi driver got me as close as possible, but I still was unsure of where the building was and it was dark out.  I made sure that the taxi remained while I asked a security in the street for help and thankfully he knew where I should go.  There was a front desk guard in the foyer who didn’t speak any English, but he understood that I was staying in the Airbnb, gave me three keys on a ring and told me to go up to the 17^th and top floor of the building.   I tried each key and eventually got the door open but was then presented with a predicament.  There were four rooms: A, B, C and D and I had no idea which one was mine and so I began trying each key on each door (felt like I was in a game show!).  Well behind door C some woman called out from inside.  “Disculpe, soy Dave por Airbnb” I tried to respond.  It was only a bit after 9 pm but she didn’t sound interested in opening her door to help me out.  I returned to the front desk and luckily a young woman was just coming in the building and the doorman asked Fatima to help me out.  Turns out she lived in room B and the owner Sheyla is in D so she got me sorted.  My room was A.  The room was just like in the pictures and it looked great.  The last few weeks at the flight park were quite hectic with the last students finishing up, closing the park and packing for the trip so I hadn’t had much time to do any planning of my itinerary apart from arriving in Lima so I now had a week to relax, do some planning and hopefully some paragliding!

My home for the week:

A "sunset" view from my room a few nights later:

Hola Peru!