The Paracas Peninsula, facing the ocean and buffeted by dust storms, after which it is named, is a huge mineral desert endowed with a strange, almost supernatural beauty. White cliffs, immense dunes that stretch down to the shore, rocky formations eroded by the waves, bare earth covered in a red crust that crumbles under your footsteps, all of which under a layer of floury sand that sticks like icing sugar: you may think you are on the moon. Don't miss Lagunillas Bay, a bird sanctuary.