PISCO & PARACAS

After coming down from the mountains we head for the coast. This involves a 16 hour journey, three different buses and an extortionate taxi ride. The taxi picks us up on the outskirts of Pisco, on the Panamerican Highway. We negotiate him down from 20 Soles to 18. Another taxi driver shouts out to him, insultingly, on hearing the price, asking if he's hungry.

The taxi skirts around Pisco. Five years ago it was hit by an earthquake measuring 8.0 on the Richter scale. The taxi driver tells us that most of the city was destroyed. He also said it has meant that Pisco has become dangerous. For tourists, for everyone. We drive past a shack city, which was created after the earthquake and has now become permanent. I ask the taxi driver if the government has helped in the reconstruction. He says the government is corrupt.

On the road out to Paracas, our destination, the rubble from the earthquake is still piled up on the beach. Kilometres of detritus. After the apocalypse. Further on are the fish factories, where they make animal feed. The area has a potent smell. The taxi driver says it's not to bad today. Sometimes it's unbearable.

All this doesn't seem like an auspicious tiding for a beach resort. Paracas turns out to be scrappy, in the midst of a building boom. Various resorts are nearing completion. The centre of town is a bit like London after the Blitz. Full of holes. There's a small beach promenade. The beach itself is dirty and scrappy. We walk away from town, heading for the only functioning cashpoint at the Hilton. (There was another one but my card got trapped in it and it stopped working.) We pass smart, well-watered holiday homes, but the landscape is bleak. Harsh, grey-green desert. The beach has dirty sand. As if to accentuate that this is not a place for swimming, it's covered with jellyfish. Beautiful, red-green-yellow-gold jellyfish are littered across the sand. It's not even safe for paddling.

The Hilton is a two km walk away. Guests are sprinkled round the pool. From the outside it looks like a prison camp. From the inside it feels like the Hilton at the end of the world. The cashpoint is working. We catch a minivan back into town.