Miramar Pisco

... being the first sighting. El Candelabro is a sculpture cut into the sandstone cliffs next to the coast, and the theories of its origin and purpose were many. Thereafter, we sailed for about 20 minutes to the Ballestas Islands. Honestly, I was not very excited, expecting just to see some birds and perhaps some sea lions. But was I surprised and amazed!! I have never seen so many birds or sea lions at one spot before. And Humboldt penguins – and pelicans! One thing is for ...

... from a Hitchcock film. I was getting the fear, when all of a sudden the penguins showed up. Pinguino! Pinguino! screamed the Latin Americans we shared the boat with. Everyone jumped to their feet, unbalancing the boat even more and making it rock around while the paparazzi got their David Attenborough shots. F*****g tourists! <br><br>Who am I to blow against the wind, I jumped to my feet and joined them as the South American sealions revealed themselves like cute ...

... breakfast, get some cash out and then head on to paracas for the night ... anyway, we arrived in pisco, and it was not atall as the guide book had described... the taxi driver explained that they were re building everything. I felt a bit silly that I didnt know why... and didnt really want to ask. Al and I came to the conclusion that there had been some kind of disaster since the guide book had been written ...

... the only undamaged house in the road and I felt guilty to go inside and have a nice bed to sleep in.<br>In Pisco we walked for 10 minutes to see the city centre but Shirey suggested to go back to the hotel and have dinner as it is not safe, we happly agreed to the idea.<br><br>The next day we took a boat to the Ballestas Island where we saw lots of sealion, comarants, pelicans and pinguins, so cute. <br>But the best part of the ...

... spare plastic bags we could use as sick bags. He was going through them at a rate of knots. We asked our guide where to put the used ones and the response was..... throw it out the window....which we did!!!! The next day I left Mark in bed and headed off for a boat trip around the Ballestas Islands which is a wild lfe reserve. I have never seen anything like it. There must have been hundreds of thousands of birds of all ...

... however are lazy travellers so it took us 5 days to decide to go sandboarding. This was Nadine´s birthday treat, and as an extra special treat I broke her camera by holding it out in front of me whilst sandboarding down a huge dune head first. In hindsight I guess I could have guessed it would fill up with sand and conk out. Luckily, the video remained intact and I´ll try and upload it sometime soon. The dune ...

... the government seem to have missed looking into rebuilding Pisco after the desaster and have just started helping the people rebuilding their homes and building streets after a protest of the Pisco people. Rumors mention corrupt governments and authorities.<br><br>One would think that 2 years after a desaster at least the main infrastructure elements should have been rebuilt, but not in Pisco. There are barely any paved roads, mostly rubble ...

At the moment we are feeling totally depressed. We are leaving what has been a definite highlight of this trip. 2 weeks of volunteer work in the city of Pisco which was devastated 2 years ago by an earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale.<br><br>This was totally unscheduled and we planned to stay a week. We ended up staying 2 weeks and would love to stay longer but have to move on unfortunately.<br><br> Arriving from Nazca was rather uneventful ...

... very poor. We got a taxi to hotel, which apperaed to be the only building still standing in the street. Once inside though it was nice and we had a good evening meal before trying the local drink. Pisco Sour. A mixture of Pisco, sugar, lemon and egg white... it was surprizingly nice. Unfortunately the hotel ran out of lemons so we couldn´t have a second!<br><br>In the morning we got a taxi to port and headed out ...

... von der Kultur des Ortes kennen zu lernen. Wir trafen auf Herrn Guillermo Marcos Santa Cruz, einen Afroperuaner, der als Direktor und Violinist einer Musik und Tanzgruppe die Folklore des Ortes pflegt. Er erzählte uns von den Zapateos, den Tänzen, die einzeln oder in Gruppen getanzt werden. Dabei tanzen unterschiedliche Tänzer im Wettstreit ein Solo bei dem besonders mit den Füßen gestampft wird, wie dies oft bei afrikanischen Tänzen zu sehen ist. Diese Zapateos ...