Our next stop was the town of Pisco which had been devastated by a massive earthquake in 2007. Unfortunately it hasnt recovered yet with most of the town run down and attractive. Our reason for staying here was to visit the nearby Ballestas Islands, a wildlife haven known as the 'poor mans galapagos' and the Paracas National Reserve.

The Ballestas Islands were fascinating and our tour very informative. As well as seeing a giant cactus shape (El Candelabra) carved into a hill on one island that was used as a navigation point by sailors hundreds of years ago we saw penguins, pelicans, sea lions, boobies, cormurants and other wildlife from very close up on a speedboat. While the visit didn't last long we both enjoyed it thoroughly despite not being nature fanatics!

After the islands we had a bus tour of the Paracas reserve which was extremely disappointing. The tour was conducted in Spanish, not English as we had been told when we booked up the tour. The reserve itself was quite plain and the major attraction - a coastal rock formation - collapsed in the earthquake so was just a lump of rock in the sea. The main thing we were hoping to see was Flamingoes which we didn't get to see either. To make matters worse, Ashley came down ill that evening soo we were stuck in Pisco for another night. Oh Well!