This morning we awake before 6am, just as our fellow hostel mates are starting to wind down from their all night rager. With all the bars and clubs in Lima you'd think they'd want to actually go out but for some reason they all think the hostel is a better place to party. This concept is completely lost on me but to each his own. We find out before we leave that our hostel is actually an Israeli hot spot, so we were 2 of only 3 non Israeli guests staying there. I suppose I can't really blame them for wanting to party, I would too if I just got released from 2 years of mandatory military service. Besides, that's what ear plugs are for...thanks RON ladies!

We catch the 7:30am bus out of Lima to Paracas, which means we are in for a 4 hour drive down the coast. On the way they play the movie Pearl Harbor for us, I guess they're trying to cater to their English-speaking passengers? Not sure, but talk about depressing. Next time Cruz del Sur bus line, just pick a comedy OK? We arrive in Paracas about noon and checked into our hostel, where we get a private room. Yay! I'm all for sharing a room dorm style, as it is the cheapest option, but after our Lima experience we are grateful for a quiet space of our own. Paracas is a tiny little town on the coast, known for access to Las Islas Balletas and Paracas Natural Reserve. We will visit both of those places in a couple days, I'm pretty excited! The Balletas Islands are known as the 'poor man's Galapagos' so hopefully we will see a lot of cool wildlife. The southern coast of Peru is all desert so I'm curious to see what the reserve is like. I'm anticipating seeing some cool things out there as well. We walk around the town a bit, which seems to me was only built to cater to all the tourists that come to see the aforementioned natural areas and as such is composed solely of hostels and seafood restaurants. Unfortunately these hostels are in much better condition than the homes of the locals, but in a poor area like this I suppose I better get used to seeing that.

We spend the first day doing little more than wandering around and getting our bearings of the place, and suddenly it is already the next day. Today we made friends with a German girl named Claudia, or rather she came straight up and introduced herself so I guess it was she who made friends with us. Claudia is staying in the room across from us at the hostel. She has been traveling through South America on her own and doesn't know a lick of Spanish, brave girl. Not that 'traditional' Spanish will really get you too far down here, as the Peruvian dialect is a mix of Quechua and other words used only in this region, so many words and pronunciations are much different than Spanish spoken in Mexico or Spain. I'm at somewhat of a disadvantage because most of the Spanish I know is the dialect from Spain, and many of those words don't apply here at all. But we are fumbling our way through and so far we've been able to communicate just fine. I have found that while Lauren is better at speaking the language, I am better at understanding it, so between the 2 of us we possess a grasp of the language that's nowhere near fluent but gets us by with ease.

Fast forward another day and we are now watching the World Cup final with Claudia, which is interesting because she is obviously rooting for Germany and we really hope Argentina will win. In the end she is the one who gets to celebrate, but it was a great game in which both teams persisted to the very end. It's great hanging out with Claudia; she's a positive, adventurous person with just the sort of spirit we've been looking forward to meeting on this trip. Tonight we are meeting up with a group we will be traveling with all the way to Cuzco, with multiple stops and adventures on the way. The bus we will be taking is called Peru Hop and we signed up for an all inclusive package that is comprised of a visit to both the Ballestas Islands and the Paracas Natural Reserve tomorrow, followed by awesome activities the rest of the week. We will ride dune buggies, go sand boarding, view the Nazca lines, and participate in a 2-day trek into the Colca Canyon, the second largest canyon in the world (supposedly twice as deep as the Grand Canyon). We are going to dinner with the group in a couple hours and it should be good times.