Hop on!

Day 3: The day started at 5:45 am. This is the first day of truly backpacking and travelling around Peru. We got picked up by Peruhop, the bus agency that will travel us around Peru the next week. Provided with a flexible schedule, being able to hop on and off as we wish and some free tours we started the day by visiting the oracle of pachacamac, an ancient inca ruin where people came to pray to the moon, instead of the sun which was custom during Inca time. 

The next stop was San Jose’s casa, nowadays a 5-star hotel, previously owned by a wealthy family that had around 1000 slaves working at their plantation. To avoid taxes the family dug a tunnel to hide the slaves in. The tunnels are 17km long and reach all the way untill the ocean. We were allowed to go into the tunnel, which gave an insight of how the slaves lived. Only the strongest and tallest slaves were recruiter, therefore the shortest slave was around 1.80m. We entered the tunnel with flashlights and noticed that it gave quite a claustrophobic feeling. There were remains of corpses and a singular bat in the tunnel. 

Afterwards, we continued our trip to paracas, after having grabbed a few sandwiches (4 for 8 soles!). Paracas is known for the natural reserve, ballestas isles and is a fisherman’s town. Next to the apparently excellent fish in Paracas, the locals also eat cats. Ronald and I arrived at 2pm and strolled around the small town for a bit, knowing that tomorrow will be a day packed with activities. After having had lunch and some time to relaxe we searched for a place to meet other tourists, eventually we found the place Kokopellis, a backpacker hostel packed with travellers all over the world. We met a great bunch of people, had a few drinks and laughs and ended the night at a solid 1 am.