Pisco Peru and Islas Ballestas

Our first stop on our southern swing was Pisco.  The guide book said that there is an important port here that supports Peru and specifically the city of Lima.  Our research indicated that only 1 bus company actually stopped in Pisco, and that the other option was to get dropped off on the side of the Panamerican Highway and then figure out transportation to the city yourselves.  It would be getting close to dark after our 4 hour bus ride from Lima, so we decided to spend a little more money and get the “direct bus”.

We know that the guide book is a few years old and they are not always accurate.  We generally only use them to get us pointed in the right direction, and then play the rest by ear.  But this time it was less the guide book and more mother nature that change our plans.

In August of 2007 Pisco was hit by a deadly earthquake meaursing 8.0 and killing hundreds.  There is little to indicate almost 2 years later that the town has begun rebuilding.  Most of the displaced families live on the outskirts of town in makeshift housing, and the downtown area looks more like a bombed out city than a place where people live and work.

We asked our tour guide what the government was doing to help and his answer was very little.  Without insurance, savings, or assistance it will be a slow process of rebuilding.  In fact, my guess would be that you could return in another 2 or 3 years and little would have changed.

So we were dropped on the side of the highway and had to make our way to Pisco via taxi through the shanty towns that make up the outskirts of Pisco.  It was a very strange feeling, one minute enjoying a comfortable bus ride and the next minute crammed in a taxi with your bags, bouncing down a dust dirt road without a clue where you are going, not understanding a word that is being said, and then find yourself in the middle of an earthquake destruction zone.  Welcome to South America!

And, as we learned during our stay in Pisco there is not really any reason for tourists to stop here.  The actual port city of Paracas, 15 miles south of Pisco, is where the tourist boats leave and where the port that supplies fish and natural gas to Lima is located.  There are several resorts located here, a couple were closed for renovations apparently trying to repair earthquake damage as well.

The Islas Ballestas is often referred to as “poor man’s Galapago’s”, this moniker is an exaggeration and gives these islands more credit than they deserve.  It was a fun excursion…but Islas Ballestas is no Galapagos!

Our day started early, a 6 a.m. wake up to arrive at the docks at 7:15.  It was a beautiful morning…

Paracas Peru

Did I say it was an early morning?

Early Morning for Gigi

And many of the local fishing boats were sitting in the tiny harbor…

Paracas Fishing Boats

After a rather long wait getting the hordes of tourists into the boats and headed toward the islands, the actual boat ride was a speedy 30 minutes in mostly calm water. Many people were wearing shirt sleeves and were still comfortable even in the early morning hour on the water.

Islas Ballestas Speed Boats

We were able to see lots of birds, Penguins and Sea Lions!  It was really cool to see Penguins in their natural habitat.  These fellows below are Humboldt Penguins.  These guys (actually a guy and gal) were making there way down this rock face and it was pretty fun to watch.

Humboldt Penguin

Back in the 1800′s Guano was one of Peru’s largest exports.  What is Guano…hmmm, lets see, well it is bird poop!  These islands are covered in bird poop and they would scrape it off the rocks and sell it.

Why would someone want to buy bird poop?  See if you can come up with the answer and then email us at sean@portable-parents.com with what you think.  We will post the best answers we get on the blog.

These islands are owned by the Peruvian government and even today the Guano is harvested, I mean the bird poop is scraped off the rocks and sold.  Every 5 years some 170 men spend 4 months scraping the rocks clean…talk about a dirty job!

Here is the “house” they stay in when they are living on the island…

Guana Workers Housing

We really liked seeing the Penguins, but we also like seeing the Sea Lions.

Sea Lion

We were able to see lots of Sea Lions right up close.  So close that we could have reached out and touched them…

Sea Lions of Peru

Did I say lots of Sea Lions?  I mean lots and lots and lots of Sea Lions…

Islas Ballestas

Islas Ballestas Sea Lions

And check this out, in the picture below you can see a bunch of baby Sea Lions.  Look for the small, black guys.  In January hundreds of babies are born on these islands, so these little guys are only a couple of months old and just learning to swim and fish for themselves.

Islas Ballestas Baby Sea Lions

The islands were definitely pretty cool.  We were able to see lots of birds and mammals that you can’t see just anywhere…

Islands of Peru

So maybe their nickname is a little bit of an exaggeration, but the islands are definitely worth a visit and were a good first stop through southern Peru.

We uploaded more Pisco pictures to our Picasa Web Album.