February 11, 2025

When one thinks of the desert the familiar ones come to mind: Saraha, Gobi, Namib, the Great Salt Flats in Utah and the Arctic Desert. Yes, not all deserts are hot! More about that when we get to the Arctic.

Today we visited The Paracas National Reserve a stunning ecological reserve located in the coastal desert of Peru that is the second driest place on the planet. The driest place on Earth is Wright Valley, McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica. It is hard to believe that the Earth’s driest place is at one of its poles, but this is the truth. The average annual precipitation at The Paracas National Reserve is only 0.76 mm, or about 0.03 inches per year! The desert’s extreme aridity is caused by a combination of factors, including the cold Humboldt Current offshore, the high altitude of the Andes mountains to the east, and the stable atmospheric conditions that prevent the formation of clouds.

This 800,000-hectare reserve has numerous species protected making it a paradise for geologists. The surface is so unique that it is studied by scientists from NASA because it is the one surface on earth that most resembles Mars.

Returning to the ship we passed a cove that hugged the Pacific Ocean and showed the plates that demonstrated the erosion that has taken place over many centuries. As it is summer here in Peru, I gazed some children who were frolicking in the cold ocean.

It was hard to imagine that this desolate land was once inhabited by the Incas. Anna Lembke, a well-known Stanford University psychiatrist wrote, “Our brains evolved for a world of scarcity, and the kind of abundance we are experiencing now is a mismatch for our ancient wiring. In this world in which everything has been more potent, more accessible, more novel and more bountiful, we’re prone to overconsume and can make ourselves sick.”

I do agree with Dr. Lembke, but I think I need a little more stimulus that what the Paracas reserve has to offer.

Thanks for traveling with us.