Islas Ballestas day trip

Early morning, again. Picked up by mini-bus and heading towards the ocean. For the first time in many weeks were going to see the ocean. Small boat trip to Islas Ballestas. They can be reached by boat in less than 20 minutes from the mainland. Lots of birds to look at and hopefully also some seals and penguins. Nice weather, the sun being out this morning. We arrived at the pier and went through the usual pay 2 soles for this permit and 15 for another entrance fee. And then we were on the the boat. Our guide doing a lot of speak in Spanish and occasionally mumbling a bit in English. We stayed just off the coast of the islands for more than 30 minutes giving us plenty of options to look at birds, seals and penguins. The boat getting fairly close to the shore and the rocks but not feeling dangerous at any point. We just had to stay clear of the bird droppings that rained down from the sky.

The boat headed back to the pier, we got off, found a place to hang out since our bus didn't leave until 2 hours later. We picked up our luggage from the minibus and decided not to go back to the cafe but instead found one that was a little more laid back and had pancakes for lunch. The bus terminal was just 10 minutes up the road so for once we acted like real back packers walking to the terminal with all our stuff.

It turned out to be a bit tricky to find the terminal since there was no sign. A nice guy pointed us in the right direction but it was Malene who figured out that the terminal was in fact the construction site we already had passed once. The bus arrived on time, there was only a handful of people on board including us and apart from being a quite scenic route along the coast there was nothing else to add. Getting closer to Lima the traffic got more and more dense and chaotic until there were more rows of cars than there was lanes on the actual road. We took a taxi from the bus terminal and arrived at the hostel just after darkness, rang the bell and after a while locks were unlocked and the friendly hostel owner said "welcome" to us. We had our room - a bit dodgy - and headed out into the neighbourhood of Miraflores to look for dinner. A bit hungry after a long day. Good food at CafeCafe and then back to the dodgy room for some sleep. City walk tomorrow in Lima.

Ready to go

Early breakfast

At bit cloudy this morning

One more ticket

Inca message?

Seals on the beach

Lots of birds

Giant colony of birds

Favourite bird for the moment

Lazy seals

Improvised bus terminal

Lima rush hour traffic

From Cusco to Lima

Great food at CafeCafe

And of course - Ceviche

Heading for the ocean

We left our B&B early in the morning. The reason - we were going on a 4 day kayak trip. We got to the kayak place, got all the practical information and packed our stuff.

Then on to the two-person kayaks to go through the basics and at 10 we were on the water heading for the first camp on Hanson Island.

We kayaked for around 3 hours to get there, then unloaded the kayaks and had lunch. The camp was already set up so we only had to choose a tent and move into it.

After lunch we got back on the water and paddled around for another two hours looking for wild life. Lots of birds but the whales were far away. We headed back to camp and enjoyed the sunny evening sitting on the cliff and looking for whales. Humpbacks and Orcas going up and down the coast. Some far away others really close to the shore where we were sitting.

Very amazing evening. We could even hear the whales exhaling as the sun set and it got completely dark. Whales are heavy breathers. Looking forward to another day on the water tomorrow. And hopefully some whales.