Intro
Day 303. The morning in Paracas started under a flat, overcast sky at 21.5°C, but the humidity didn’t hide the fact that I was about to enter one of the driest patches of dirt on the planet. I was aiming for a 9:30 start, fueled by a spinach omelette and a maracuja from Freddie’s garden, but the desert has a way of slowing things down before you even hit the sand.
Warm Crusts and World Sailors
- The yeasty, warm aroma of fresh bread pulled me into ‘El Pan de la Reserva’ before I even reached the park gates. I was just looking for supplies—water, avocado, fruit—but the smell was too much to ignore. While I was tearing into a warm crust, I met Matthias. He and his partner are from Lima, planning to sail around the world starting this October from Spain. We traded stories for half an hour, discussing the logistics of long-term travel. They even offered me a full breakfast, but I had to decline; the desert was waiting, and the sun was already starting to burn through the morning grey.
- I reached the reserve gate at 10:15 AM. The cashier was friendly, but the landscape behind her looked intimidating. A sign confirmed my suspicions: this is one of the driest areas on Earth. I checked my water levels one last time and rolled into the beige void.
The Sound of Crumbling Asphalt
- By midday, the sky had cleared to a pale, hard blue, and the temperature ticked up to 22.3°C. The landscape transformed into a literal moonscape—vast, rolling dunes of beige and brown that looked like they hadn’t seen water since the prehistoric era. The road surface was a constant battle; the old paved cycling paths were heavily worn, and the crunch of the deteriorated asphalt under my tires was the only sound for miles, echoing against the silence of the dunes.
- I stopped at Mirador la Catedral and the high cliffs of Playa Supay, looking down at the jagged rock formations where the Pacific tries its best to eat the desert. I spent twenty minutes talking to some travelers from Würzburg, but mostly I just stared at the scale of the cliffs. I learned the name ‘Paracas’ comes from the Quechua words ‘para’ (rain) and ‘acca’ (sand). It’s an apt description. The wind here doesn’t carry moisture; it carries a gritty texture that you can feel settling into the pores of your skin and the grease of your chain.
Red Sand and Giant Penguins
- Lunch was a solitary affair at Yamuque beach, sitting at a shaded picnic table. I used that crusty bread from the morning to make a sandwich with my leftover omelette and a mandarina for dessert. Further down the track, the desert brown suddenly shifted into a deep, startling crimson. This is the Red Beach, where the sand looks like it’s been soaked in wine. I tried to get some drone footage to capture the contrast, but the tech was as temperamental as the wind, and I ended up with nothing but a few blurry frames of me looking confused on a hilltop.
- I finished the reserve loop at the interpretation center, which offered a strange look into the deep past. Apparently, 36 million years ago, this wasteland was home to 1.5-meter tall prehistoric penguins. It’s hard to imagine something that large and flightless surviving in this heat (but they also said that this was once ocean and they have prove for it), but then again, I’m basically doing the same thing on two wheels, just with more gear and less blubber.
The Resort Gauntlet and the Night Shift
- Coming back into ‘civilization’ was a jarring experience. One minute I’m in a prehistoric desert, and the next I’m cycling along the Malecon, passing luxury houses with impossibly green lawns that look like they’ve been spray-painted onto the dust. The path ended abruptly at the Hotel Paracas, a Luxury Collection Resort. I didn’t have a choice but to dismount and push my dusty, gear-laden touring bike right through the pristine lobby to get to the other side. The guests lounging by the pool looked at me like I was a ghost that had wandered in from the dunes.
- I escaped back to a familiar Peruvian-Colombian fusion spot for a massive bowl of Chaufa Vegetariano. A woman passed by shouting ‘Massamorra,’ so I flagged her down for a portion of creamed rice as an appetizer. Instead of calling it a night in Paracas, I decided to push through a 9km night ride to Antillas. It was 19:05 by the time I rolled into the Backpacker Hostel Morón. I spent the rest of the evening in a coding session, fixing the map animation rendering for my trip videos while my cleaned laundry was sorted by me. I’ve got the bike prepped for an early start; I want to be on the road to Ica before 9:00 AM.
Overnight
I stayed at the Backpacker Hostel Morón in Antillas. It’s a modern, clean facility that provided a quiet environment for a late-night coding session and allowed me to store my leftover Chaufa in a fridge for tomorrow’s lunch.
Reflection
A 9km push in the dark tonight makes the long climb to Ica tomorrow significantly less of a grind.
Route summary
- Date: 2026-08-09
- Distance: 49.13 km
- Elevation gain: 381 m
- Elevation loss: 322 m
- Duration: 10 h 9 min
- Time in Motion: 4 h 20 min
- Average Speed: 11.3 km/h