The Unbelievable Paracas

On the way to Paracas, a 3 and a half hour bus ride, I could not comprehend the strangeness of peru's landscape. Out the left window was endless hills of desert, more dirt than I have ever seen, and on the right, the Pacific Ocean. How such dry land, void of trees, could be against so much water was crazy to me. The air was heavy with moisture, but not sign of flora was anywhere to be seen. Paracas, a huge expanse of desert, was once under the sea. The dry, brittle earth that crunched under our feet and the dirt that flew in our eyes all day, we're at one point the bottom of the ocean.

Two separate occurrences altered this land from wet to dry. Tech tonic plates along the coast moved in a way that lifted the earth up and away from the rest of the sea. Of course, this was not an immediate reaction. It took hundreds of years for the land to grow as high as it now: a cliff overlooking the water. Another addition to this inclination of rock was the drop in ocean water. At about the same time the plates were moving, the poles were freezing. Icecaps grew and grew, taking in the salt water that had been distributed around the world in the seas. Between these two phenomenons, Paracan land was created. While taking pictures and exploring this land, our tour guide took us to a particular spot to see fossils. Shell-like shapes can be clearly seen in the sand.

One of the biggest things we all noticed was the amount of salt around us. The rock that makes up the hills is a large part salt. If you break any of the rocks, you discover white salt within it. There is so much of it they built the roads out of it. This salt looks powder white, like chalk. The salt that hardens slower produces a semi-translucent crystal structure. You can even feel the salt in the air. My hair and skin felt as if I had been scuba diving and then airdried. You could taste it on your lips. If you licked or wiped it off it would be back within a minute. The air, although humid, makes you feel crusty and gross.

This might be my favorite part of Peru so far. Mostly because it's so unusual to me, I'm accustomed to being surrounded by trees. But another part of it is how huge it is. Pictures, by either me or a professional, will never do this land justice.  If someone showed me a picture of miles of dirt I wouldn't be impressed either. It is not something I can explain to you with words. You must see it with your own eyes.