Pisco

The Islas Ballestas and the Reserva Nacional de Parracas

On the first day I took a bus down to Pisco where I did arrive in the afternoon and after a bit of research found an adequate hostel to stay in for the night. The bus ride wasn´t to spectacular, besides two things: While in Lima, you don´t really notice that the city actually lies in the middle of a desert. So, this was really nice to see, in the beginning at least, but in fact - as it is a desert - there isn´t really much to look out for. I guess this also is the reason why they show movies on board of some busses. And this was kind of strange: First they showed a rip-copy of the Spiderman movie (that even had not had premiere in some countries (e.g. Germany) ‘til that day) and afterwards they showed the uncensored version of Starship Troopers (that one is at least R18). Well, Peruvian rules... When I finally got there, I realised pretty fast that Pisco itself has nothing to offer but the fact that it´s close to heaps of scenic landscape. So a spent a very quiet night alone in my room in the hostel and went with a tour to the Islas Ballestas the next morning at six thirty.

This group of islands is very famous for it´s unique wild-life, consisting mainly of an incredible amount of birds, sealions and heaps of different fish. To get there we had to take a ride in a speedboat - that was really good fun and some people got really wet while we were hopping across the waves on our way. It was really impressive to see - and that´s valid for the whole trip I did that days - how the desert meets the ocean. There are miles and miles of only stones and sand with nothing but relentless heat and finally you get to see a quantity of water that is enough to cover half of our planet (the Pacific Ocean). Incredible.

- Desert meets ocean - I could have stood and stared forever there... -

- On the way to the Islands. -

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Another amazing thing we got to see on the way to the Islands was the famous “Candelabra” - a giantic, candle-holder-shaped carving on he hills at the coast close to Parracas. Its dimensions are impressive - I think it is something like 200m x 100m. Nobody really knows what it´s doing there or who etched it into those hills, but there are heaps of theories none of which sounds very convincing to me...

“La Candelabra” - big and misterious... -

The fist thing we got to see on the islands (we saw it from the boat of course, because nobody is allowed to step on the isles - they´re protected) was a huge colony of sealions. Actually, before you really can see them you hear them (and sometimes smell them). There where hundreds of those animals, all lying on the beach or rock-formations or were jumping into and out of the water. They got quite close to the boat, too - seems like they´re very courious about everything that´s new to them... Besides we got to see an incredible amount of birds - the wild-life there is really astunishing and quite unique, too...

- The Islas Ballestas. Note all those funny arcs in the rock-formations! -

- The quantity (and the quality, as well) of the sealions was just amazing. -

- Ok, not all of them are exactly pretty, but they´re very funny to see... -

- Reminds me a bit of the time of the dinosaurs - I guess there hasn´t changed too much... -

- These funny little guys are Humboldt-Penguins. -

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After having seen the Islands we went to the Reserva Nacional de Parracas, a national park that is especially know for its flamingoes and its ruins, where a lot of pre-Inca remainings of ancient cultures were discovered.