From Lima we hugged the Atacama Desert coastline until we arrived in the town of Pisco, five hours south. Destroyed by a scale 8 earthquake 3 years ago, at first glance it does sort of resemble a war zone. 80% of the town was destroyed, so the people have and are working really hard to rebuild it (it was hard to see the shacks set up in the desert by people clearly still left homeless). We stayed near the plaza where everyone seemed to hang out, in a friendly little hostel that was miraculously not affected by the quake. Famous for the drink Pisco Sour (Pisco is like a grape brandy) our hostess served us night caps of the limey drink and I haven't been able to stop ordering them since - everywhere in Peru & delicious!
The next day we set off to Paracus National Reserve and the Ballestas Islands bright and early. The combination of rugged shoreline, mountains and dessert make for a really barren landscape but the wildlife was overwhelming. We set out on a boat tour of the islands and saw Sea Lions, Humboldt Penguins and an amazing number of birds (Cormorants, Boobies, Pelicans etc). The penguins were so cute to watch, hopping along the rocks, flippers together before elegantly diving into the freezing cold sea.
The Humboldt Current brings with it an amazing amount of plankton and fish (as do the fishing boats) so watching the hundreds of birds flying through the sky like long ribbons, ducking and diving into the ocean was like watching a David Attenborough documentary for real - pretty cool!
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