As I write up this installment, sat in Posada Gino in Pisco, Sarah and I have the Barber's Adagio For Strings playing in the background, with Platoon on the TV. In Spanish. Just think of that as you look at these pictures.
After waking every day to baby blue skies, we arise to a solid grey swimming around us. To put a positive spin on it, that makes it excellent weather for heading out to the islands nearby and taking photographs without the glare. On the negative, surely it will be a cold trip into the Pacific Ocean this morning.
The tour starts at 8am. We are up at 7am, have a wee bap, and walk across the road to the pier where we part with PNS$10 to get on the boat, and PNS$2 to get onto the pier. Not to mention PNS$30 for the actually tour. Still, a tenner was a deal. Isla de Sangayan was great for seeing more creatures, and we saved ourselves a fortune from not visiting the Parque Nacional later on, given that it got an 'ok' thumbs up from Richard.
We need more sleep. This 6am sunrise thing just ain't working.
This is the sort of boat we were on, with about 25 other people.
And, should I ever be on my way to Hades, I expect it to look a bit like this (perhaps less jaunty mermaids on the side of the boats, though)
We were barely fifty feet out when we were joined by a school of dolphins who hung around for a while. These were proper sized dolphins, not those bottle-nosed ones from Argentina. Everyone OOOH'd and AAAAH'd as they do when they see dolphins.
First stop is Isla Ballestas, where there's another mysterious shape scrawled out on the side of the hill. This one is also massive, about 55m across and 140m high, more or less.
It's either a candleabra or a cactus, depending on who you talk to.
But we leave that behind quickly for the more exciting destination, Isla de Sangayan, the 'poor man's Galapagos' as they say. I'm guessing this poor man must be utterly bloody destitute, as this trip cost us a tenner, and Galapagos is about 500quid or so, last I heard. And there would need to be a hell of a lot more there than just seagulls and sealions!
Ok, it is pretty impressive when you're there, and the sealions make a hell of a noise, like a playground at a raucous school. The penguins are fun but dont go in the water in case they get eaten, and one of the girls on the boat suffered a bird pooing on her. Someone tried to explain it was lucky. She didn't really see it that way.
Which brings us to the main point of this island - guano. Every five or six years, depending on yield, 300 men come to this island and take all the guano away. It takes about six months. Free fertilizer for Peru. They love it.
This photo is a panoramic one from our new Sony camera. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't. But its interesting nonetheless. And here are examples of the sort of pruck you can buy when you get off the boat.
The sky cleared a bit, and we walked along the beach...
...and found a dead sealion. Another one. This one had definitely been food for seagulls.
I found a KREB!
Well that was all very exciting. How shall we spend the rest of our day here? Lets call into a little restaurant we saw a day ago and have a beer, maybe some food, take photos of children sitting a few feet away, and have Spanish / English classes with the girls who work in the restaurant, teaching them my Ma's recipe for Irish Stew in the process. They were rather upset when I told them you can't put chicken into the stew. They put chicken into EVERYTHING in Paracas. There are lots of chickens here, somewhere. More on that later.
Anyway, we chat for ages then this chap shows up...
... and as per usual, when you meet a chap from back home he's always from Donegal (Greencastle to be exact) by way of Glasgow. Oisin was full of banter, albeit recovering from a night of heavy inebriation the previous one, and eventually was persuaded into a pisco sour, whilst Sarah and I enjoyed our first bottle of Peruano vino tinto. And at six quid a bottle in the restaurant, for a good 2009 Malbec, it was delicious.
Ended up back in the pizza place, where I fell asleep, which is as good a reason as any to pack up and go home to bed. Tomorrow... Pisco! Hope its as good as the spirit named after it!
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