The meeting

We stayed circling the island taking photos and admiring the rock formations for about 20 minutes before heading back to Paracas.  We had really enjoyed the trip.  It reminded us of our excursion to the Farne Islands last year!

Back at the hostel, we had our meeting with Nikki and Ritchie.  All the speculation had been way off the mark!  What they wanted to tell us was that there is currently industrial unrest here in Peru and that it might affect our onward travel between here and Cusco and even further south.  The miners are protesting and have set up road blocks on all major routes.  Nikki and Ritchie wanted to give us the heads up because they know we have all booked expensive nonrefundable excursions around Cusco, especially to the big bucket list destination - Machu Picchu.  They are in touch with contacts on our route ahead, as well as back in Lima.  They will update us in the morning.  In the meantime, we are leaving for our next destination, Huacachina.

Obviously, the news set off a flurry of speculation and a certain amount of panic among some members of the group who immediately began researching buses back to Lima and flights to Cusco in order not to miss their Machu Picchu experiences.   Others, including us, vowed to 'wait and see'.Read more