Isla Chincha Centro

Just off the coast of Paracas you will find the Islas Ballestas. They are also known as the poor mans Galapagos and as we we couldn't afford it on this trip we were hoping to get our wildlife fix!

We were picked up from our hostel at 7:45am and headed to the harbour to catch the boat. After around 30 minutes we reached the islands. En route we passed Paracas Candelabra. It is a prehistoric geoglyph and is of mysterious origin. Call me a skeptic but there were some suspicious looking lines surrounding the candelabra that may have explained how it never disappeared! You can't get off the boat as the island is protected but the driver slowly took us around the edges and into the coves whilst the guide explained a bit about the birds and animals. There was also a pretty cool rock formation in one of the coves that looked like a face!

We saw blue footed boobies, Peruvian terns, sea lions, bright red starfish and 32 legged starfish (I didn't even know there was such a thing!). It was amazing! I can't get over the sheer number of birds there actually were. They were boobies everywhere!

Because there are so many birds, there's a distinct aroma of guano (more commonly known as bird poop). Apparently researchers clean the island of guano every 8 years as it's a seriously good fertiliser! That must be quite the task as in 2011 they collected 40,000 tons.

We were also incredibly lucky to see 4 Humboldt penguins. These penguins are pretty small at 45cm and also sadly endangered. Along the coast of Paracas you can also find lots of Pelicans which are fun to watch.

As the boat trip was only a couple of hours long we had the rest of the day to lounge on the beach which was nice. As the sun started to go down we decided to have a couple of beers on the seafront and watch the sun go down. It's also starting to hit us now that the South American instalment of our adventure is coming to an end which is a little sad.Read more