It was only a short drive to Paracas, maybe only ninety minutes. But it was enough time for us to have a few beers on the bus. This kind of set the tone for how the night was going to go. It was late evening when we arrived in the small town of Paracas so it was a quick change and then off for dinner. The restaurant was nice, and got even better in my opinion when they gave us a couple of free jugs of a Pisco dink. Cam and I were both craving a Pizza, so naturally each chose something else from the menu. He had a burrito which looked pretty tasty but nothing compared to Earl and mine's choice of Bacon and Chicken Lasagne and it tasted as good as it looked. A round of desserts went around next and I was very impressed with my banana split. Things got out of hand ten as absinthe was noticed on the menu. Someone put the idea forward and not wanting to look like a p**** I agreed, soon enough there was five us signed up to have the absinthe shot. Surprisingly Diego was one of them. The shot what got given to us though was probably not absinthe even though it had come from an absinthe bottle. Instead of the bright green liquid in front of us we had dark brown liquor with an aniseed smell and taste. Infact it tasted just like Sambuca with a tea spoon of tobacco sauce. After dinner we headed back to the hostel but Cam, Earl and myself were not ready to stop partying. That's when I introduced the bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Earl had got me for my birthday. However, we needed a mixer, the town looked like a ghost town but the reception guy we woke up who looked like he was off his t*** on some sort of narcotics pointed us to a whole in the wall where we could get some Coca-Cola. Then the carnage began, as we started playing poker but without chips we used sips of drinks. We thought things were bad at forty sips a hand but Earl managed to come crushing down on a 100 sip hand. It's this hand and following events of him drinking that we put down to him not remembering the rest of the night and him doing things like rolling on the floor shouting Hodor, scaling balconies and climbing on very unsecure bamboo roofs. With the whisky gone and our spirits still high and wanting to party we went to try and find Andrew who was staying with some of his buddies in another hostel. Unfortunately though at 1.45am they would not let us in despite our best efforts, Cam was pretty much speaking fluent Spanish in my eyes, I was threating with bad trip advisor reviews and Earl, well Earl was just shouting Hodor a lot and stepping on the 'sacred' brick. After telling us Andrew wasn't stopping there, then that he was asleep and then that he had gone out we decided to count our loses and see what Paracas had in terms of a night-life on a Sunday night without him. The peaceful beach town of Paracas though on a Sunday night was dead. You could visit a graveyard and it would be livelier. We strolled around asking the odd random hobo if there was a fiesta but to no avail. We decided to end our trip when we reached the fountain / pond / water feature with the flamingos surrounding it and headed back to the hostel. The mischief didn't stop there though as we decided to try and put meat swing on the hostel computer for them to find in the morning. Our drunken state though meant that turning the computer on was a great difficulty and we only proceeded in waking a German tourist who gave us an earful, we also woke the sky high receptionist and we all legged it like we were naught school children. Earl chose a hiding place that wasn't so hidden and was caught and told to go to bed, as he just stood looking at the door to our room for several minutes the receptionist turned the light on finding me who was using the darkness to hide in the corridor. I apologised and got Earl in the room where he continued to lay about squealing Hodor. Cam soon joined us coming out of his hiding spot at the end of the corridor unseen and in our room we promised to get on it the next day and especially as we would be going to the Peruvian capital that night. The night ended with us doing the hand in the middle thing and shouting LIMA LAS VEGAS!

My alarm went off at 7.30am, 7.40am and 7.50am. At 7.52 I eventually got out my bed feeling very rough. We had definitely done things wrong, in Huacachina where there was a happening and buzzing night life and we had a free morning we decided to sleep and the next night in the ghost town of Paracas and having to do a tour at 8.00am the next day we decided to go wild and get so drunk that Earl can't remember anything. Our expedition was a trip to the Ballestas Islands, a natural group of rocks in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that contains approximately 500,000 birds, sea lions and penguins all living in their natural habitat. Those of you who know you well will know that I have a semi-phobia and a disliking for birds. I blame Australia for this reason. While I was there I was viciously attacked by at least three birds and shat on by several more so being hungover and on this tour was not ideal for me. Most of the tour Cam and I spent the time taking the piss and moaning. Earl slept. The rest of the group probably hated us and they got their reward when true to form a bird manage to s*** on my knee, the b****** feathered creatures. I should say though that not all birds get me raging. In fact the bigger the bird the better, the ostrich, condors, emu's all awesome it's the little mischievous birds like swooping magpies, pigeons and most hated of all the s***ty seagull. Also on the tour I felt like we were seeing the same thing over and over and over again, if they mixed it up a little and I wasn't sat next to the engine where I couldn't hear the guide maybe I would have a different view, though I highly doubt it.

The next tour did little to inspire me either as we went on bus through the 335,000 hectares of the Paracas Natural Reserve where Diego took us to various viewing points so we could capture some shots of the dessert meeting the ocean. We also got to visit the museum there. I think the tour would have been much much much better if we were able to do it on quad bikes. Unfortunately we were just stuck to the people carrier we were crammed in. The day got better as we had lunch by the see and then we had free time in Paracas, around four hours of it to be precise. The town itself had a few things to do you could hire a quad, go kayaking, kite surf but we decided to chill on the hostels veranda and chat amongst ourselves. And in a point of not much relevance what so ever when popping to the local shop to get some snacks for the bus I saw the biggest sized bananas I had ever seen, not in length but in girth. They were huge. I definitely wouldn't have liked to be working on the banana farm where they were produced.

After the free time we made our way north to a small town called Chincha. From here we left the highway and visited a small village called El Carmen. Here we were able to visit Hacienda San Jose, one of the oldest and richest houses in the whole of Peru. At the Hacienda, we were shown around the mansion which oddly had a pool table with twenty pockets, I thought to myself even Suze would be able to pot a ball on that table. We were then taken around the underground tunnels that were used 300 years ago to help bring slaves from Africa from the port to the Hacienda illegally. I was almost locked in the tunnels when Bree tried to close the trap door obviously jealous of the bromance between Cam and myself. The house was really impressive and definitely the best tour of the day.

It was now time to head to the capital of Peru - Lima and in case you were wondering the promise we made about getting on it all day and having a Lima Las Vegas day and night was broken as we all recovered from the after effects of the mental night before.

So until next time stay safe and take care

Adi

xx