Paracas, Peru 🇵🇪

This morning we have a short tour of the Paracas Reserve.  It is a dissapointing tour, stopping briefly at a few lookouts but the area itself is interesting.  The presence of different minerals creates different coloured sand which in turn makes for a dramatic landscape.  The biggest contrast is found at the Red beach where the shoreline is a maroon colour.

Back in Paracas, we head to lunch in a small hut that is famous for its flounder cerviche.  My first Peruvian cerviche is fresh, tart from the lime and packs a punch from the chilli too.  The chef is a good laugh and makes me finish all the tiger milk even though my mouth is on fire.  We stroll along the shore front killing time before our evening bus to Lima.

Peruhop include a stop and tour of San Jose, a country mansion about an hour out of Paracas.  It was built in the 17th century,  first owned by the jesuits then as they were thrown out of the country a rich Spanish woman aquired it and it stayed in her family for 4 generations.  It is a beautiful hotel now, but the real history is told in the story of the tunnels.

It was a time when the estate used African slaves to work the land.  These were bigger and stronger than the Peruvian workers and owning slaves showed wealth or power.  The slaves were bought but the new owners would then need to pay a tax for each.  To avoid this the family built tunnels under the house to bring the slaves in under darkness.  The slaves would be bought at the port and smuggled down the tunnels to walk 17km to the house.  Once there they were held underground for 2 weeks to release people into the workforce slowly and avoid suspicion.  We visited a couple of holding rooms and they were really small for us, a group of 14.  I can’t imagine being in the dark with 40 people, it would be awful conditions.

We saw several of the slave branding irons and the torture tools utilised if any tried to escape.  In 1856 the act was passed giving freedom to all slaves.  The owner of this estate hid the new law for almost a year, once word got out the slaves revolted and killed the owner of the house on the steps of the mansion.  A fitting end to a cruel family.

We arrived in Lima at midnight and I was thrilled to be the first drop off so I could tuck myself up in bed!