Paracas, Islas Ballestas, Peru

We arrived in Paracas after a comfortable 4hour bus journey from Lima on the Pan American highway which runs from Ecuador all the way to Chile. You can't avoid the shock of the shanty towns in the outskirts of Lima, a real eyeopener. People living in shacks made from stones with only a piece of corrugated metal for shelter. Dust and more dust makes it seem impossible that they would ever have clean clothes/homes/bodies, but amazingly the people are extremely well kept.

Colourful clothes lines litter the dusty landscape with more westernised garments (stringtops/jeans/swimsuits) than my uneducated mind would have imagined. It's hard to imagine people living in these run down places until you actually see it. When you see this kind of living on TV you don't actually see that these places are right next to a city which is pretty(ish) and well developed(ish). The rich/poor extreme is something I'd never seen before now.

Arrival in Paracas...what a pretty place! It's a very quiet and peaceful place until you want to get some sleep and you're kept awake with the thump thump of the club nextdoor until 6am, only to get an hours sleep before a million roosters being strangled in a unison off key cock-a-doodle-do rumbles the much needed slumber. We couldn't figure out if they were dogs or what the hell was making this crazy noise until we got up the next morning to see outside our hotel about 20-30cages with 20-30 roosters screeching at us as we passed. Bastards.

We had arranged to go on a tour of the Islas Ballestas & the Paracas National park the next morning which is why we didn't just go get pissed at the nextdoor nightclub..we should really have just joined them! The islands were quite nice (some pics below), but we had to stay on the boat the whole time, hence the slightly blurry pics as was trying to avoid getting other peoples heads in the shots. The park was lovely too, the landscape is so unusual & drastic, really enjoyed this day trip. The owner of our hostel (which consisting of pretty little wooden cabins) was pretty sound aswell which helped hugely.

Some pics from the boat journey to the Islands

Los Boobies! Or otherwise known as the Peruvian Boobie.

Boat journey to the Islands

Sealions sunbathing on the rocks...so cute!

Sealions sunbathing on top of eachother

Apparantly they sunbath in the morning and go fishing in the afternoon,  some life!

I love them!!

This one's for Gearoid...Los Penguinos!

Those black dots on the mountain are birds, thousands of them with thousands of tons of crap which  is called Guano and is collected every 4-8 years to be sold as fertiliser...mmm.