BootsnAll Travel Network



December 6th – The Stinky Chronicles


How Cute

Originally uploaded by roupiesontour

A boat trip today to the poor man’s Galapagos Islands – Ballestas Islands. The boat was full of orange vested Japanese and Europeans and set off in search of wildlife. Within a couple of minutes we had seen dolphins and sea lions surrounding the local fishing boats and their first catches. The islands themselves are more like a series of rocks, you take the boat round them. We saw comorants and their babies, pelicans with mouths full of fish, penguins, boobies, starfish stuck to the rocks, masses of sealions and mounds of bird poo 50 meters high. I can only let you imagine the stench but the view made it so worthwhile. The sea lions were curious and would keeps swimming out to the boat and popping their heads up – you wondered who was watching who. It really felt like we had stepped into a Planet Earth DVD, absolutely brilliant.

More luxury coach travel in the afternoon to Nazca. We passed a truck that had partly gone over the edge of the high road (still the scenery was in the desert) that looked quite scary. I don’t think anyone was hurt but a lot of men were standing around scratching heads. Saw more “box” towns and fields of ragged looking crops being harvested by locals with huge pots on their backs, attached to their heads by a huge headband. The wineries we passed looked inviting, I will have to check out the wine when we get back.

Nazca is bigger than Paracas and as soon as you get off the bus you are jumped on by touts and travel agents. How nice it is to have someone waiting for us to take us straight to our hotel for the night! We had a quick rest and then out to The Nazca Lines Hotel and planetarium for a talk on the famous Nazca lines. For all of those who don’t know they are mysterious shapes and lines in the desert that have been there for centuries. You can only make out the shapes from the air which is why they weren’t discovered until the 1930’s. The talk also included a session in the dark making out the constellations – strange thing they are all upside down here!



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