Islas Ballestas

We woke at about 6 after a much better nights sleep in the tent than on previous occasions thanks to the roll mats and the sandy ground and got up to pack the tent away which we accomplished in record time. As we passed the front of the police station one of the officers came out to make sure we were ok and we thanked him for his help the night before then walked down to the sea front to see about a boat trip to the Islas Ballistas. We were instantly greeted by 2 ladies who tried to sell us a tour but when we realised they did business out of a nearby restaurant and not an actual office we decided not to risk being ripped off even more and went elsewhere. We bought tickets from 'Carol Tours' and were able to leave our backpacks in a locked room by the office for as long as we needed, so feeling happier we went for a quick coffee across the street before joining the multitudes of other tourists who had appeared over the last hour or so (it had been so peaceful at 7am!!) in the queues for the boats. We chatted to a Peruvian couple from Lima here for the weekend whilst we waited for ½ hour to get on the boat and asked a few things about the city as that was where we were next headed. Eventually we were able to get on the boat which held about 30 people and was modern, fast and comfortable especially compared to the ones on Lake Titicaca which were old, slow and leaked!! After donning our fashionable fluorescent orange life jackets we were off speeding across the calm waters in the wake of a dozen or so similar boats that had left before us. As we came to the end of a vast sand dune which formed a headland we slowed down and the guide on the boat pointed out to us the 'Candelabra' which is a giant picture that looks like a cactus drawn on the side of the dune by people pre-dating the Incas. The guide proved to be quite knowledgeable as well as reasonably fluent in both English and French as well as Spanish and so all on board got the benefit of his knowledge. Leaving the Candelabra behind we whizzed across the water for another 20 minutes or so watching pelicans (which are HUGE!!) glide effortlessly across the waves and various other birds soaring above us before we heard rather than saw the massive colony of sealions on the Islands. As we got closer we also began to hear the birds, these islands are a protected reserve as they are home to millions of different sea birds from Peruvian Pelicans and Peruvian Terns (my favourite, pretty little black birds with red tear stripes and white bellies) to various Boobies, Gulls and Humbolt Penguins!! The noise of all these birds chattering and squabbling along with the roars and grunts of the thousand strong colony of Sea Lions meant that even with a microphone and sitting near the front of the boat we could only just hear what the guide was saying!! We spent the next 45 mins slowly edging round the Islands watching the spectacle of one of the worlds best places to see 'guano' birds and marvelling at the colour changes in the islands which are pretty much white on top from all the guano, then where the tide line is you see that the rock underneath is a deep reddish brown and below this as the waves ebb away it is black where mussels cling to the rocks in their millions. Eventually it was time to leave and on the way back we kept a hopeful eye out for dolphins which are reputed to come this way on a regular basis but to no avail. Once back on shore we went to a shop to buy some beer to give as a thankyou present to Joel for helping us out at the Police Station last night and found him in his office, most surprised and delighted with our gift. Next we decided we'd have a go at finding the illusive Victoria to see if she could shed any light on Luis or what had gone on but as soon as our names were mentioned to her on the phone she was 'unavailable' and we gave it up as a bad idea and found ourselves a 'rasperilla' instead. It was scorching hot by this time and shade was scarce, so after wandering around trying to find somewhere we could get on the internet for ages we eventually walked ½ a mile or so to the 5* hotel just outside the town and begged wifi off of them which they very kindly let us use for free! We spent the next hour or so here, more because it was cool from the air-con than anything else, booked our room for the night in Lima and relaxed until it was time to go fetch our bags and walk to the bus station. We got there with plenty of time to spare, but needn't have bothered as it was an hour late arriving with no reason or apology for the delay! Even so we enjoyed our 4 hour journey with 2 films to watch on the in-house entertainment and even a snack of a chicken sandwich, slice of really yummy cake and a coffee. Arriving in Lima at 7.30pm we collected our bags at the large, modern looking Cruz del Sur terminal (each company has its own terminal here instead of being all in one place) and got a taxi to the hostel we'd booked online. As seems to be usual for us we had to wait ages for them to find our booking, the room we'd booked was full so they had to find a different one to allocate us (not that it mattered to us, a 8 bed dorm isnt much different from an 10 bed) then we had to explain that we'd already paid 10% online and give them the correct exchange rate so we didnt get overcharged before finally being able to dump our bags on our bunks, go for a shower and relax. It was 10pm by now and we found ourselves in the TV room with several other travellers watching Something about Mary, which is a great film that had us all in stitches, after which we headed to bed at just after midnight.