Ballestas Islands

We woke up at around 6 am to start our tour at the Ballestas Islands in Paracus. It's about a 20 minute drive out of Pisco. We thought of staying in Paracus at first but Pisco was cheaper and not that far. Again, we had a simple continental breakfast here at the hostel with the addition of eggs. I think I am addicted to this breakfast as I am already looking forward to tomorrows! Always thinking with my stomach I tell ya!

I was a bit tired today. I am noticing I am getting a bit tired the more we travel in Peru than when we were in China in 2007. And the journey just started! I almost slept on the ride going to the Ballestas and on the way back as well. The boat tour kept me awake.

Our guide was speaking French and Spanish as most of the people in our group (they put us in a line with other tourists that have already arrived there to fill out the boat) spoke the 2 languages. My French is not good so I would pick up some words and put them together with the context. The easy word was "merde" which is sh*t or crap (in this case the birds and sea lions) lol.

The islands were amazing but the most amazing was how many birds there were! It was crazy! You definately have to bring a hat (or put a shirt on your head as some people did) in case they crap on you when they are flying above you. Then again... isn't that good luck? :) And come picture time, it's really every man for himself as people just intuitively stand and start taking photos of the animals and may get in your way...so you may have to be a bit aggressive. The boat is moving most of the time so you have to take advantage of the moment to take the pics you want. We did stop at times like taking pictures of the sea lions. That's when we saw and heard some rucus from the sea lion group laying there as though a fight would break out but it did not. So no action shots ;)

The rest of the day was spent napping and lounging around at the hostel. In Pisco, there is really nothing to do. It's pretty much the Pisco Sour tours or the gateway for the Ballestas Islands tour. We committed tomorrow to volunteering for the day so we are here for another night and the next night as we will be just exhausted from a day's work on the project sites that they will have us working at. Don't know yet what we will do ... we'll know tomorrow.

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