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Sunday, December 14, 2003

Cool Thing #1

From Lima we caught the bus to Pisco - a one-trick town, but, as Katherine put it, "at least it has a trick at all". And its trick is rather a good one. Just off the coast are the Ballestas Islands. They are home to over 150 species of marine birds, and billions (probably) of sea-lions, and have been dubbed "the poor-man's Galapogas".

Poor-man's is right, since it only costs $6.50 per person to see them! We arrived in Pisco and went straight to our hotel, which conveniently doubled as a tour agency, and within an hour or two had tickets to the Islands for the next day. (Incidentally, the town of Pisco is pretty grim, and has nothing to recommend it, so we stayed in for the rest of the evening!).

We woke early, and left for the port by bus at 7am. Our boat was waiting when we arrived - to Katherine's excitement it was a large speed boat, and 18 of us crowded in (it was a big boat!). The engine must have been huge, because we zoomed along at a fair speed, and - again, Katherine liked this bit - the bow went up in the air like on TV!

En route to the Islands is a huge design etched into the sand dunes on the mainland, the "Candelabro". No one knows why it's there, or even who put it there, but theories range from Masonic revolutionaries (the candelabrum has some special Masonic significance apparently) to hallucinogenic cacti used by native shamans to English pirate symbols of control. A fourth, rather more cynical theory, is that eager tour guides did it to drum up a bit more trade...

We reached the Islands after about half an hour. It's a National Park, so we weren't allowed to land, but you could see plenty from the sea. I've never seen so many sea birds in the same place - there must have been hundreds of thousands. Every seven years the Peruvian governement sends a team to the Islands to sweep up all the guano, which is used as a natural fertilizer (nitrogen rich). Nice! (We had been advised to wear hats, because 'direct hits' are common, but we managed to survive unscathed).

So anyway, we saw cormorants, pelicans, Inca terns and Peruvian boobies (Katherine won't let me make a rude joke :). Inca terns are cute, black with red beaks and feet, and pelicans - huge beaks - totally rock!

Usually the Islands are home to lots of penguins, too, but it wasn't penguin season when we were there. Nevertheless, we did spot five little Humboldt chappies, looking rather sad and lost. "Where are our friends?" I'm sure they were wondering - "other side of the world, mate" is the answer. (Katherine tells me that that last sentence is a bit 'strained'. Hmph.) Humboldt penguins are very small (not much bigger than pelicans) and cute.

We'd seen sea-lions in San Francisco, but not in the quantities that there were here. The sea-lions have taken over entire beaches, where they raise their young in nurseries, and spend their lives splashing around, honking at each other and basking in the sun. Male sea-lions also enjoy a good fight, and always seem to be at each others' throats. Of course, since they only have teeny little flippers (plus they're grotesquely fat), they never really do much damage to each other, but it's fun to watch.

There's a sad story behind all of this. The Humboldt current, which flows up the coast of Perú, makes the sea water cold and full of plankton. This brings anchovies, which in turn feed the birds and the sea-lions. However, every seven-years the naturally occurring El Niño current takes effect, warming the water up and killing off the plankton. The anchovies disappear, the birds fly elsewhere, but the sea-lions stay and die in droves. During El Niño years sea-lion infant mortality is 100% - none survive - and adult mortality is 80%. The population recovers quickly, though, just in time for the next El Niño. So being a sea-lion clearly isn't all fun and games ;).

So that was our Pisco adventure. Cheap and cheerful, and very worthwhile. The birds and sea-lions are still quite fearless, and so the boat could get very close up to them. I took too many photos, as usual!

(In case you were wondering, the town of Pisco is named after the famous Peruvian drink - the Pisco sour -, since it is from there that it was first exported).

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