Peru Day 21: Escape from Paracas and Ballestas Islands

The last early morning for this holiday though I wouldn't say we really needed it. We bused it over to Paracas for our Ballestas Island boat excursion for an 8am start. It seemed a bit unorganised and our rep didn't quite seem to keep on top of it (like yesterday and compared to the rest of the holiday). It looked like two other tourists were being looked after by our rep who were late and didn't arrive with us. This just added to the wasted time - you can tell we were getting grumpy by now.

The 30 minute boat ride to the islands was ok (apart from the gloomy grey skies) thanks to our sea sickness pills but the side effects were drowiness so could have missed the whole trip through nodding off. We saw an ancient landmarking along the way called the 'Candilabre'. After that it was boobies, sea lions, penguins, turkey vultures and more boobies. No wonder they used to collect the crap for fertilizer! Seeing the hundreds of sealions was the highlight as they congregated on a beach with a high cliff wall behind them. Their general calls and barks was so loud echoing off the wall.

Another hour and we were back in Paracas for another tour. Didn't really get an idea what we were going to see apart from a desert national park. The first stop wasn't that inspiring for me, maybe it was the dull grey skies or the drowiness, or being spoilt the previous day with the sandbuggying. A couple more stops and the landscape became a little more interesting with high barren dunes, a sea rock similar to a famous Dorset beach cliff, a very red sandy beach and another beach for some random beachcombing.

For lunch we had to go back to Paracas which was a lot more quieter with all the tourists having the sensible idea of going elsewhere. We didn't have that option but had to endure a dodgy fish based lunch and a two hour wait - more wasted time just to wait for the only Cruz del Sol coach back to Lima.

Lima traffic was horrendous with all sizes of vehicles cutting into each other, crossing lanes...just general chaos. One amusing vehicle was a motorcycle combined with a two-wheeled cart containing what looked like the rider's elderly dad lying down under a blanket, both speeding down the motorway. Another 30 minutes battle through the traffic for the hotel (Casa Andina) transfer and room service for dinner.