What did we do two weeks ago?

La Candelabra



Can someone identify this bird for me please?





Drowsy sea lion



This took half an hour to load...The Peruvian Cormorant?

 Geez, updating a blog is difficult when constantly on the move.  The whole purpose of it is to document our travels and it has already been two weeks since the last post.  Let me see, let me see, what did we do two weeks ago?  Well, after Lima, we took a four hour bus ride south to the town of Pisco, also on the coast.  Here again, we realized  that an up to date guide book would be handy.  The town was completely ravaged by the earthquake three years ago and looked like cleanup was still in the beginning stages.  Businesses were physically no longer there and there were rubble piles along all the streets.  It was a sad site.  Perhaps sounding insensitive, we were fortunate that Pisco was just a jumping off point for a tour of Islas Bellestas, islands that contained numerous seabird and sea lion colonies.  Guess who was really excited for that?! Well, we had arrived too late in the day to do the tour and so booked for the next morning.  We found a hostel run by a nice family, him Brazilian and her Peruvian, and spent the evening drinking beers and playing cards in the room.  The next morning we were picked up and taken to a town twenty minutes down the coast.  There we squeezed onto a boat, along with thirty other people, and taken out to these islands  (This is where pictures would really be nice, I´ll add them as soon as we can have the camera chord sent!).  The first stop was to view the the Candelabra (see above), a giant figure etched into the hillside by an unknown indigenous group, perhaps the Nazca, famous for the Nazca lines that are in the shapes of monkey, lizards, etc.  The guide gave a very brief summary of what is known and then we moved onto the islands.  You could tell he gives the same schpeal every day and was not super animated.  Note, we were not alone out there, there were at least 5 other boats around us as well.  The islands were pretty amazing, there were thousands of pelicans, gulls, cormorants and more lining the rocks.  There were also thousands of sea lions, which we got way too close to.  I felt bad that the seals were getting exhaust from the boats blown in their faces and sadly, they seemed to be used to it.  They hardly opened their eyes to look at us whilst 5 ft away, though that could have been due to drowsiness from the fumes, I don´t know.  After a brief description by the guide, we were already on our way back.  The day was young and we decided to walk out to the national reserve.  After an hour walking in the desert, those carrying the heavy packs had had enough.  We paid our entrance fees and hopped a ride the rest of the way in a local fisherman´s van.  He dropped us off at fishing village that had a couple restaurants, a dock, and little else.  I couldn´t help thinking to myself "This is it?"  The guide book made it sound like a breathtaking experience, but perhaps that too had somehow changed since the four years of publication.  I put on a happy face and joined the others in our search to find a place to set up camp for the night.  Only a half hour later, we found it, on a beach called Las Minas.  To access it, it was necessary to traverse a loose, rocky and steep hillside.  By this time it was only 330 and I´m pretty sure everyone was thinking to themselves "now what?"  With little to do and already having spent five days the three of us together, 24/7, we all needed a little space and we were stuck together on a secluded beach.  Rather comical, looking back on it now, but it wasnt at the time!  Jess set up the tent, Nick took a walk, and I did some bird watching.  We had an early dinner of bread, avocado, tomatoe and cheese and got into our sleeping bags around 6pm.  Just half an hour later we realized the tide was rising and that at some point during the night, we would certainly have waves coming into the tent.  With little light left, we quickly moved the tent to higher ground.  I must add that I have realized on this trip that somehow I have become more paranoid since last traveling three and a half years ago.  I couldn´t help but noticing the large rocks that had fallen from the cliffs above all around us and imagine a rock slide crushing us during the night.  But, at that point we had little choice.  It was too dark to find another place to camp and that was the only higher ground on the beach.  Needless to say, little sleep was to be had.  There were three of us in a two person tent and if it wasn´t the crashing waves on the shore, it was the pebbles that would fall and hit the tent, startling me awake and signaling to me I likely had seconds to live.   We packed up early the next morning and as we got up the hill from the beach, I noticed some local fisherman smirking at us.  I´m sure they thought we were crazy and I had to agree.  We overpaid the first fisherman we could find to take us back to town.
What´s great about traveling though, is the rose colored glasses effect.  I look back on that experience now, even just two weeks later, and think "wow, that was awesome!"



This is it? half mile from the beach we camped on