Hotel Mossone Huacachina

... in Fran words, Theme Park of lit up fountains. The had one that lit up and played music - very south american, the beatles, back street boys etc. Very hiliarious. Have tried to post a video but its just too big a file im afraid!

After a forced sleep via sleeping pill, we went to Ballastes Islands or poor mans galapagos. It has a special bird that excretes droppings which they collect and sell as ...

... were a blast but we are trying to stick to ecological tourism, which would definitely not apply. Ica was a dump and their emolientes (the first of our trip, were a B- at best.) Awaiting better ones tonight, here in Arequipa... Tomorrow we raft and the day after we trek into the land of the Condors, Cabanaconde. We may scale a volcano, too, El Misti, if we acclimatize appropriately on our trek.

... wants to take them home) We got on the boat and start to head out only to be halted by dolphin sighting. They are swimmimg around the boats. Finally get going and first stop is to see the Candelabrum, like Ballestas nazca line, nobody knows who did it or why, I like the pirate theory best.Then its a bit of a way to the main islands and it is cold and windy, so we al have our heads down. When we get over there ...

... an hour to get out of the sun... and then last night I watched the
movie Hostel. Which was really stupid. I'm paranoid now. Paracas is
great. It's a calm little beach town with a lot of local flavor and
hospitality. Great chocolate. BEAUTIFUL weather (80s in the day 50s
in the night...) and an amazing ocean view. Like a postcard.]


Silvio led the tour to the
Islas Ballesta on Friday. We saw guano-covered cliffs, One-eyed
Cortazans ...

... we used however was extremely nice - cost about a thousand times as much as the bus that the locals use but obviosuly worth every penny (check out the photo). Our first night we spent in a hostel / hotel recommended by the Lonely Planet so clearly the prices reflected this and we moved out after our first night to a hotel with a bigger pool and which was half the price! There are a bunch of photos of this ...

... the bartender and his friend came over to the fire pit and I started chatting with them, and we had a 30-45 minute conversation in spanish (which I was very pleased that I could do). By the time I looked down at my phone, it had somehow gotten to be 2:30, and since we had to meet our cabbies four hours later to head to Paracas, we declared a successful night and went back to our hostal.

The next day we left for Paracas and the Islas Bellestas, where we saw penguins ...

... sun set over the horizon, far in the distance across the desert. What a fantastic and unforgettable landscape.

Back at the hostel we spent a good while having showers, as we were all absolutely covered in sand; there was sand in my pockets, in my ears... I even found sand in places it really shouldn´t have been. That evening we went for dinner at a bar-restaurant called El Bolepo just by the oasis and I had a huge pizza which I customised myself. Bloody lovely.

... right was the ocean. Behind us was miles of sand. The breeze from the last stop was now rushing wind. The only sign that people had been there before were small piles of stones left by travelers as signs of gratitude to the Incan gods. We made our own and left.

Our final stop was the red beach. The cliffs from which we saw it were a light brown, the ocean a deep blue, and the sand along the shore a magnificent red. It was Iike a painting. We were both impressed. And ...

... blurry photos while the boat rocks to-and-fro. But the islands...they are covered in millions of birds...so many birds in some places that you can´t even see the ground they stand on. Cormorants, boobys, pelicans. And even a couple Humbolt penguins! The bird 'guano' (aka poo) is apparently a great fertiliser, and quite expensive...they farm it every 10 years and make some big bucks. There are also quite a few sea lion colonies out on the island, and they all ...