Wildlife, Inca Ruins and Pacific Ocean

  Pisco, Peru
Monday, May 11, 2009

We were wondering why the roads were so bumpy arriving into Pisco last night, daylight sheds some light... the town was mostly all destroyed in 2007 by an earthquake, 40% of people lost their houses and are now living in a shanty sort of town outside Pisco...again it makes you appreciate what you have.

There still seems to be a real community spirit here, they are trying to rebuild the town out of their own money... very little if any help from the government.

We had planned to rest for the day, but Joan is up at 8am rearing to go... after having a monster breakfast with apple pie for dessert... we decide to take a tour of the Tambo Colorado ruins, these are pre Inca and Inca ruins outside Pisco, Incaīs much to their respect didnt colonise other cultures and just built on existing countries, this was a cool place to chill out and go back in time.


Back to Pisco for some dinner... we normally avoid places that advertise tourist menus.. but we ended up eating there and i end up puking for most of the night.

Islas Ballestas

Miraclous recovery and we are all up ready to go at 7am to go to the "poor man Galapgos". This involves a boat trip of 40 minutes. On the way we spot the candelabra, hard to miss it really, this is a giant figure etched into the hill similiar to the Nazca lines. Of course there are many different theories of how this figure appeared, from the Paracas culture or the Incas or else the founder of Peru, Saint Martin.


Then we arrive at the islands, no inhabitants just lots of wildlife, Humboldt penguins, sealions and pelicans and the rotten smell of the guano fertiliser that was exported for many years but has now been over exploited so now they only export it every 6 years, this fertiliser would work wonders in Richard Moultonīs garden....



We then spent the afternoon in the Paracas peninsula, the Paracas was another pre-inca culture. Fantastic scenery of the Pacific ocean, "the catedral" which broke of from the cliff in the aftershock of the earthquake, the red beach and then a long lazy afternoon having the best sole dinner in a remote fishing village.



Back to Pisco to catch a bus to Nazca to check out these mysterious lines in the sand.