Penguin Oasis

Day 2

In order to arrive on time for our boat ride we had an impressively early departure of 5:30 am.  Even in the dark you can see the differences between where we stayed and the rest of the city, ending with the slums on the edges, for lack of a better term.  Past instability forced many people into the cities where they built on the hills around the edges and don't necessarily have all the services we're used to at home.  Such as water, roads, not always with electricity.

This tour covers a good portion of southern Peru.  Today we're heading south to Ica, driving along the lovely Pacific Ocean on the Pan American highway.  I've been on the Pan American a few times, in different countries.  You can actually drive all the way from Alaska to Chile.  It even goes through Edmonton!  It's an impressive feat when you think about it.  And is a huge asset for Peru as they have little railroad to move things around so much of it is shipped by truck.  Which you could really tell on certain stretches of road when it was us and all the trucks, and that's it!

One thing I've really noticed, and a trend that continued right down to the end, is the election signs everywhere.  If I ever run into Keiko in person I'll remember who she is after seeing her face for 2 weeks.  The main ones seemed to be Keiko, with her inspirational signs, PPK and Acuna.  There are posters hanging everywhere as well as fences, walls, houses and everything in between painted in nearly every little place we went.  And I though the election signs at home were bad!

Coca Cola branded restaurants

Along all the beaches are these little tents with giant Coca Cola or Inca Kola signs giving the restaurant names.  Which was usually just Jack's Restaurant.  But to my great amusement and disapointment during one of our stops you could see a Nicole and a Cindy from the parking lot.  There goes my plan to open up a beach hut in Peru!

Pelicans

We arrived in Paracas for our bird cruise to the Ballestas Islands.  I would love to say that they've preserved the islands for the tourists, but every 7 years they collect and sell the guano (bird poo) for fertilizer.  Due to the large volume of birds people have started marketing it as the mini Galapagos islands.  I get where the idea might come from but I'm guessing that they have a lot more to see based on the reactions from people who have actually visited the real islands!
The primary birds leaving the guano are the cormorants, which were all leaving to feed.  It was a line of birds flying that started before we got there and continured well after we left.  There are also many Peruvian boobies (they're real, I promise!) and some terns.

Penguins

But the real excitement was the penguins.  Penguins!!  How did I not know that there were penguins in Peru?  I truly thought it was more of a rarity but I was proven wrong.  They're so much fun to watch walking around and we had to have spotted a few dozen all together.  We also spotted several groups of pelicans along the way.  And had a chance to see the Paracas Candelabra.  It's similar to the lines in Nazca but made by a different people.  And they picked an ideal spot to place it as it rarely rains, and is protected by the winds coming through keeping it in good condition.

Paracas candelabra, it's a terrible picture

As well there is a huge sea lion population scattered through the islands.  They had their babies in the last 2 months.  There was one terrifying moment where we were watching a mom and her baby swimming and a boat went right over them.  They were okay but I think that if our boat caught up to them bad things might have happened.  The ride was really interesting and worthwhile getting out to see all the wildlife.  And of course who says no to penguins?  The only negative is that the guano made all the islands smell a bit like cat pee.  Which is impressively smelly.  Still worth it!

Beach of sea lions

The vast majority of people coming to Peru head straight to Machu Picchu and Cusco.  In fact when the river flooded and Machu Picchu was closed in 2010 tourism was nearly nonexistent.  I can really notice it as we were some of the only obvious foreign tourists in many of these places.  The restaurants were really eager for our business.  I've lost track how many times I've said no gracias now!

One thing you can find a lot in Peru is Inca Kola.  The internet tells me that it sells better than Coke here even.  It originated in Peru but has been bought by Coke.  It's a strange drink.  One of the guys on the tour, Terry, developed a bit of an addiction to it.  It's a hard flavor to narrow down, apparently there is lemongrass in there.  But as soon as our guide mentioned a bubblegum aftertaste that was all I could taste and one was good enough for me!

Grape crushing pool

The national drink that is incredibly popular is Pisco sour.  It's a liquor made from very sugary grapes mixed with lime juice, ice and egg whites.  We got the chance to visit a factory that makes the Pisco and had quite a few samples of their products.  We were a little tame here and I'm glad that this was at the beginning of the tour when we were still tame as a group rather than towards the end when we might not have been so well behaved!  They still crush the grapes by hand (or should I say foot?) and heat it up to concentrate all the juice down to 25% of the original volume.  We tried a variety of straight pisco as well as some wine.

Our final excitement of the day was to visit a desert Oasis, Huacachina.  It's an actual oasis like you see in the movies and cartoons.  But there it was in the middle of the sand dunes with a lovely lake with all the palm trees and requisite shopping stalls and restaurants.  You could swim, rent paddle boats, take a dune buggy ride, or simply climb the dunes.  We didn't have a lot of time and quite frankly the buggies looked like something out of a Disneyland ride but without all the safety features so we passed on that.

Oasis

Our hotel tonight is in a gated community right at the edge of a dune.  I'm still trying to get used to the volume of security guards everywhere.  But many of the hotels we've stayed in have had people at the entrances or had locked doors.  And you could easily tell where the banks were with the armed security guard at the entrance to every single one.  Despite that the country does feel quite safe and I have no concerns above the usual ones when I travel.

Tomorrow we continue heading south to Nazca, home of the Nazca lines (shocking, I'm sure you all expected the lines to be somewhere else!)