Pisco  March 24, 2014

OK, I wasn’t expecting anything from this port, partly because we didn’t know anything about it and partly, because the Capt.  sent out a letter that indicated that Peru was going to be dangerous, don’t wear jewelry, etc.  Well he should have defined more of what he was talking about, because Pisco, is a very cute little town in the desert.  It is a long way from where the ship docks, so you have to take a shuttle into town if you don’t have a tour. Cost $8 each way, but it is a half hour ride, so understandable.  We had a tour to the Islas Ballestas, this place blew us away!  This tour was WAY better then we had any idea it would be.  Where to begin;  we boarded our bus, and drove the half hour ride to the town, now this looked like we were in the Sahara, and would see Laurence of Arabia, ride by at any moment!  We arrived at a beautiful hotel that looked like an oasis, and walked to the boats that were going to take us to the Islands.  

This was one of the smoothest boat rides I have ever had.  We first traveled back across the bay and to the tip of where our ship was docked, and there must have been a thousand Pelicans,

we have never seen soooooooo many in one place.  Then we had a photo stop at the 500-foot-high Candelabra, a mysterious geoglyph carved thousands of years ago.  It was really something, this place only gets 30 minutes of rain a year!!! I have never heard some one talk about rain using minutes for measurement.  But that is why these petri-gliffs are still there.  

So now our boat headed out to sea, we went about 11 miles, when we finely saw where we were going, it was a pretty  incredible group of islands, they call them the "Galapagos of Peru”,

and I can see why.  There were literally thousands of seabirds and marine life. We were awestruck by the number of boobies, cormorants, terns and Humbolt penguins,

and Chilean flamingos.  Sealion colonies abound, we even were able to see brand new baby sealions,

on the beach, and we saw sea anomies on the rocks and I was able to get pictures of them.  Some of the islands have colonies of up to 600,000 birds flying in and out at any given time.  Now I knew whey they told us to wear a hat!  They harvest the POOP, can’t remember how to spell it in spanish, every 5 or 6 years, evidently that is a big deal, as they have built these racks to collect it.

All and all it was a fabulous day!