Poor Mans Galapagos, Isla Ballestas.

We travelled from the dizzy altitudes we had been at in Cusco and western Bolivia for the last 4 or 5 weeks, finally back to sea level! Our 1st glimpse of the coastline in nearly 3 months was not quite what we were expecting, pretty grey and grim!

The small town of Paracas ( better than the bigger town Pisco nearby) is trying to be touristy but doesn´t quite get there. However we chilled out and I even slept 14 hours solid after the exhausting few days on the Inca Trail previously. The reason people go there is to visit the ´´Poor Mans Galapagos Islands´´ or the Ilsas Ballestas. We can´t afford the real thing so this was the next best thing. Ten quid instead of 500 quid!

The birds above, the Peruvian Pelican are all over the beachside. They are massive! The fisherman feed them and then try to get tourists to pay for photos, fairly typical of here. They do some crazy fishing in the shallows along side divebombing gulls doing more spectacular fishing.

We took a boat tour to the Islas. It was really cold and rough in the speed boat but kinda fun bumping over the Pacific Ocean!! And yes mums, we had life jackets. A rare safety measure here!

On the way out you go to a weird Geoglyph in the nearby sand dunes. They have no idea who put it there or how. Many theories link it to the nearby mysterious Nazca lines???..... Is pretty cool and huge.

The Islands are home to colonies of Sea Lions and you get really close to them in the boat but cannot walk on the islands sadly, it is just rocks. With a lot of poo on it. More on that later.....

We went to a beach where the females give birth and the babies stay with them for up to 2 years to learn how to survive. There were a few huge males that were having a good old ruck there too, the noise of their roars was incredible.

Ah bless. All alone, a little Humbolt Penguin. It was kind of wrong time of year to see huge colonies of them but ehey also like to live on the islands. As before in Argentina, they confirmed our belief that they are related to Liam Gallagher with their swagger.

The islands are covered in Guano which is the Quechua word for bird poo. It can be used as an excellent fertiliser. In yee days of olde it was worth a fortune and sold to Europe. It was Peru´sbiggest export and until more sophisticated fertilisers were developed. Now it is not such a big a thing and only excavated from the island every 10 years of so for local use. You can see how white the rocks are from it tho. The amount of sea birds is awesome. Peruvian boobies ( no sniggering at the back!) and Peruvian Pelicans and gulls everywhere.

This archway above is meant to resemble a mans profile. You can see it if you look to the right, he is looking down with a very big nose. Of course as in all Latin American countries they say it is Christo......

Another thing we like being down at the coast is they use Tuk Tuks, we were not expecting to see these till Asia. They were proper Vespa copy Bajaj tuk tuks too. We were not allowed in though , as tourists with backpacks, in case they tip over and we sue them. Again an unexpected safety measure here!

And a final South American phenomenon, the sausage dog crossed with everything. More on that later, but some sausage dog has been getting more than his fair share here we think.......