10th June Hello Today we set off first thing, much to the pleasure of our body clocks, on our first tourist tour. With a tasty local version of Chausson Pomme inside us we set off to the Ballestas Islands in our little bus full of French-Canadians (they seem to be everywhere). We arrived in a a lovely littel fishing port near Paracas to catch our boat out to the Islands but not before taking a few snaps of the pelicans on the pier being fed by teh local kids for photo opportunities (1 Sol a snap). We all piled onto our little boat, and yes we had to waer those bright orange life jackets, and headed out. On the way we were shown a huge making in the shape of a candelabre on the side of a hill (discovered hundreds of years ago and a local version of the crop circle mysteries). When we arrived at teh Island we had our first introduction to thousands of boobies (the bird kind) and cormarants and our first waft of tons of Guanno (bird s***) which used to be harvested for feriliser. As we passed further round the island we met a rather noisey sealion on the rocks just a few metres away. We were told by teh guide that because of the choppy weather the day before it may be our only view of a sea lion. Much to his pleasure he was wrong. But before we saw anymore we met a few cheaky penguins finding it difficult if a little comedy to walk around the rocks. Further on was a sealion jambaroo. Hundreds of the blighters messing about in the water or just lounging about on the rocks as they apparantly do quite often. Sounds like a nice life. We got a little snap happy at this point. In amogst the sealions were a few sinister looking vultures hoping one of them would pop there clogs. Back on dry land we just had time for a quick coffee before setting off on our much underestimated and cheap addition tour to the Paracas national park. Our first stop was to the musium where the guide told us the history etc, then we went to an observation tower on the beach to see some flamingoes, it was lovely, we were quite far away and had to use binoculars as they are protected so sorry no snaps. We then went off again and stops at the most pituresque little fishing village with pelicans sitting on the rocks while we sat eating Ceviche, a traditional peruvian dish of raw fish and seafood marinated in lemon juice, really fresh and tasty, especially compared to usual food here which is very greasy. We set off again afetr lunch, where we developped affinity to Dews' plymouth to dakar trip. We had a comedy driver through the paracas national park, its a pretty desolate place our driver had an attraction towards off road driving too close to the cliff edges, much to the gasps of some of the passengers, not that you could say there was a road it was a lightly dusted track in the sand marked by a couple of rocks layed out on either edge every once in a while. We arrived at an amazing cliff with a cathedral looking rock formation, where fisherman were down at the bottom fishing with simple line and hook and collecting mussels, amazing. Back to pisco for a well earned rest Adios Claire & Ian x