Paracas - Part 2

I got up this morning & joined all the other tourists in town at the dock to go to Isla Ballestas. This is also known as the ¨poor man´s Galapagos.¨ About 30 of us got into a big speedboat & headed out. They have people go in the morning before the winds pick up and make the rough sea even rougher.

The first thing we went by is called the Candelabra. It is a huge cactus-looking shape that was dug into the sand dunes by the water. No one knows who put it there or what it means. One theory is that it is related to the Nazca lines. Unlike those, you can see these ones without getting into an airplane.

Isla Ballesta is so beaitiful! They are some really big rocks with thousands of birds on them & flying all around them. The rocks have natural caves and arches carved out from the water. There were soooo many birds! Gulls, boobies, cormorants, even penguins! There were other birds that I don´t know the name if. Some of them would be up on the air & dive down int he water to catch a fish...very cool. There were also sea lions on the rocks, and crabs & starfish. It was so cool to see so many birds flying around. On one part of one of the islands, I thought the rock was black. But it turned out that it was thousands of birds on the rock! In the past, they used to collect the guana, but I didn´t catch what they did with it. I guess it can be meters thick...yuck!

We were almost back to the dock when something hit me...bird poop...ewww! It was brown & disgusting! I almost made it! Luckily it only got on my sunglasses & rain jacket. It wasn´t too hard to clean, but pretty gross.

When I went to get some lunch, I ran into the two girls from Holland who I trekked the Colca Canyon with! So we ate & caught up, then walked on the beach before I had to get my bus. This has happened several times recently. Not sure if I mentioned the Irish couple. They were on my bus back from the Colca Canyon & we chatted at lunch. They ended up on my overnight bus that night, but they got off the stop before me (2 hours before me). Later that night, when I went out to get dinner, I ran into them in town & ate with them. It´s kind of fun to run into people I traveled with before!

My bus to Lima was a little late & a little long, but it was really nice to have someone waiting for me! A friend of mine has a high school friend who is living in Lima. We´ve been emailing & I´m staying with them here, which is nice. I can relax in this big, scary city, which I couldn´t do by myself. They are a very friendly family & I´m happy to have Spanish-speaking people to help me out :)

I can´t believe that I leave on a plane tomorrow night! I will have a post at some point about what I do in Lima tomorrow, but no promises of when :)