Pisco Day 2

On Thursday we were up early to make our tour to the Islas Ballestas. It was a hurry up and wait kind of morning: meet the tour at 7:00, but the bus didn’t leave until 7:25, get to the port in Paracas and wait our turn to go to the dock, wait on the dock, then finally board our boat. We were in a high speed, tourist motorboat that we were told did 25 to 30 knots.

Our first stop was to view the Candelabra; a cactus-like pattern in the sand on a shore dune, facing the ocean. They don’t know who actually made it, or when it was made (somewhere between 300 and 800 years ago), but it was purposefully done as the pattern is 2m deep into the sand. And just the way the wind blows sand over the top of the dune, it doesn’t get filled in, so hadn’t been maintained or had anything done to it.

 

After seeing a couple seals poke their heads out along the way, we finally made it out to Islas Ballestas, about 15km off shore. It is one of the stops on the migration corridor from the Canadian Arctic to Patagonia on the southern tip of South America, but not being during the migration season, there is about 50,000 birds calling the islands home.

Of that, the main component of birds is the Guanay Cormorant, followed by Peruvian Boobies, Inka Terns, Peruvian Pelicans, and 400 Humboldt Penguins.

This was the first time any of us had seen penguins in the wild before. There were also many seals out on the rocks, including a couple yearlings.

Peruvians use the islands to “mine” (if you can call it mining when you use a shovel and bucket) bird guano to use as fertilizer. They even have made rock walls on the island to trap more of it so it doesn’t end up in the ocean. It is mined every 7 years, and usually by that point the guano is over half a metre deep. Thankfully they mined it last year. It was a little hard to fathom what 50,000 birds looks like until you saw the warm part of the rock on the island.

Yes, that dark patch is all birds.

After spending just over half an hour boating around the islands we got back up to full speed and headed back to the dock, seeing some seals along the way. Just outside of the harbour, we slowed to a crawl, and then realized it was because the captain had seen dolphins.

There were three or four bottlenose dolphins that were swimming in and around the tourist boats, but it was real challenging to time where they’d be to get a picture. After we were off the boat and back to Pisco, we checked out of the hostel, but were able to leave our bags there. We went to a little local restaurant off the main square and had a very good lunch of soup and chicken and some obscure barley drink for S/ 8 each (about $3 with tip). Then killed some time in the hostel’s courtyard before making our way back to the highway to grab our bus to Lima. Busses come every 15 minutes so we were told to not get tickets and just get on the next bus that showed up. It worked, but was a milk-run that stopped in every town along the way, so our expected 3 hour trip took 4:45, not leaving us all that much time before our flight.

We made it into Lima and it turned into a bit of a comedy as we all scrounged our soles together to try to get taxis from the bus station to the airport. We finally made it, but had to use a combination of US dollars and soles. Once we made it to the airport, we noticed our departing flight wasn’t on the board, and when we checked in we were informed that the inbound flight was delayed, thus our flight would be delayed 2 hours. Because of this we would miss our connection in Houston, so got rebooked on a flight from Houston to Denver then to Calgary as opposed to directly from Houston to home. It was a really slow process of leaving and we ended up being 2.5 hours late, but we were finally heading home.

We left Lima at just after 2am and arrived in Houston about 8:00. We got our way through customs, and got luggage, through security, and by the end of it we were the last 5 to board the flight to Denver, with Nathan and Tyson running down the concourse to make it. Once we made it to Denver, we had another delay. The flight to Calgary was 20 minutes late, then pushed to 40, then pushed to just under an hour. At least it gave us time for a nice lunch, and to remember some of the niceties of home (understanding your waitress, people having change for purchases, etc.). The last leg of our flights was uneventful aside from United leaving Nathan’s bag in Denver (they delivered it to him later that night at home). It was a long way to get home (over 25 hours from Pisco), but we made it and it concluded a great trip with great friends.

Pisco Day 1

On Thursday we got up reasonably early and headed off to the bus station to catch a bus to Pisco. Pisco is about an hour towards Lima and on the coast, named after the fortified distilled grape beverage. The drink came about due to Spanish rule where they banned the production of wines in their overseas territories. The Peruvians still made alcohol from it and it was definitely not wine. The bus stop is on the highway, and from there we went to our hostel, and walked the block to the Plaza del Armas. Pisco was devastated by an earthquake in 2007, destroying nearly all of the colonial buildings and leaving thousands still without permanent homes. Thus is was a much more run down and rougher city, which is sad, as it was bustling with some of the greatest architecture in Peru prior to the quake. We booked a tour to the Paracas National Reserve, about 15km to the south of Pisco, with our first stop on the ocean, seeing all the pelicans.

Our next stop was at the interpretative centre to learn about the animals and history in the area. It is a desert similar to Ica, yet with much different, coarser, red sand.

We continued along to the small seaside town of Lagunilla for lunch. It wasn’t just small, it was tiny, with 5 buildings, and some fishing boats moored in the natural harbour. We went to a small restaurant there, all had some form of seafood, and tried some civiche, a traditional dish of raw fish cured with lime and spicy peppers. It didn’t taste all that raw, and Dave, Rox, and I quite liked it.

We walked up the small hill behind town that overlooked the ocean which offered a great view.

However it was a cool, windy, and overcast afternoon, so that made the water not all that pleasant.

We then went to Playa Rosa, a beach with red sand, however the cool weather and high surf meant we only observed it from a distance.

The desert was quite devoid of everything, and was odd just driving along a trail through it, essentially offroad, but in regular cars.

We continued on to Playa Yumaque, where there was again no swimming, but looking on the beach for a short while we found many pieces of coral that had washed up.

Our last stop was to the “Cathedral” which used to be a giant arch from the shore out into the ocean. Unfortunately the earthquake that leveled Pisco also destroyed this rock formation and there isn’t all that much left.

We got back to Pisco and said our goodbyes to Dave who boarded a bus to Lima and flew back to Vancouver. After chilling out at the hostel for a little bit, we wandered around to try and find a place for supper. In one of the appliance stores, we saw a brand new tuk-tuk for sale.

It was only S/ 11,149 or around $5,000. And if there was some way for us to get it back home and import it into Canada, we figure we could make an absolute killing during Stampede. We spent some time having a drink and watching Modern Family in the hotel room (it is a really funny show and I highly recommend it), had dinner at another chicken restaurant before heading off to bed for our last night in Peru. 

Ica Day 2

Tuesday was an understandably late start. We had breakfast, and nothing to do until our late afternoon tour, we decided to head down to the Plaza del Armas to wander around for a bit. We did some shopping and ended up at Roky’s (a sit-down chicken restaurant) for lunch. I’m not too sure if they were large chickens, or if the ones similar restaurants back home serve are small, but we had a LOT of food. We people watched at the plaza for a bit, only saw a couple tourists, which was quite strange compared to all the tourists we saw in Cusco and other places. After a bit of time back at the hotel, we got picked up and headed to Huacachina for our dune buggying and sandboarding.

The dune buggy was fast and fun, and the dunes looked incredible.

After tooling around the dunes, and getting blasted with sand, we stopped for our sandboarding. There were three dunes to go down, each getting bigger, so you could improve from one run to the other.Nathan, Tyson, Dave, and Mike all got “professional” boards, which are essentially regular snowboards without edges.

Rox and I went on the “tourist” boards which you sled down on your stomach, essentially like skeleton.

It was so much fun, and when you wax the board (with an unlit candle) you can get some pretty good speed. After that we cruised along in the dune buggy for a bit more, then stopped at a higher elevation one to watch the sun set. Rox took the time to make a “sand angel.”

After our excursion our tour took us back to the hotel, where we showered, in a vain attempt to get all the sand off of us, before cabbing back to Huacachina for dinner. We had some pizza in a little bar, but for it being a party town, the place was quite dead. We headed back to our hotel and had a couple drinks before heading off to bed.

Ica Day 1

Monday was Thanksgiving Day in Canada and it was also a holiday in Peru. We were told it was Navy Day, or Admirals’ Day, or for some Admiral who was considered the Peruvian of the millennium, but after looking things up online, it appears it was Battle of Angamos Day, to commemorate the Peruvian naval defeat in the Battle of the Pacific in 1879, allowing Chile to advance a land war and take Peruvian and Bolivian territory into what is now modern-day northern Chile.

We started the day with breakfast at the hotel, then headed to the rooftop of the hotel to see what the city looked like. It was quite the shock in the daylight to see all the sand dunes right at the edge of town. Although it makes sense knowing that Ica is in the middle of a desert.

We took tuk-tuks to the Plaza del Armas to look for tours. We settled on a winery/wine tasting/pisco tasting tour, and it went really well. Our tour guide was Roberto and the 6 of us piled into a van and we headed off to our first stop. We started at the Tacama winery just outside of Ica. It is the oldest still active winery in not only Peru, but all of South America starting operation in 1889.

It was originally a Franciscan monastery that was later sold off and converted over to a winery. The only original part from the monastery days is the bell tower, and they still use the original bell (dated 1815) to call the workers to the fields three times a day. This was the only traditional winery we were visiting with “western” winemaking equipment, so we did enjoy some samples and bought a few bottles.

Not too bad a haul for $100 equivalent. While they make wine, they are known for their pisco, which is a fortified grape brandy, similar to grappa. And I don’t think anyone really cared for it all that much, but it was part of the tour so we kept drinking it. All the way along the Route of Pisco.

Our next stop was to the Pisco Soria, an artisan winemaker. They don’t use traditional methods for completing the wine, they let it ferment for 12 days, then add pisco to it to kill off the fermentation process. Thus there is a taste of pisco in the wine. Also, Peruvians like sweeter wines, and most tasted like a type of rosé. The piscos they make there are just essentially home brew. The matriarch of the Pisco Soria was sitting in her front rocking chair out front to ensure everyone enjoyed her wines and piscos.

We continued on to La Bodega Viñedos Ruiz where we saw the full process for making artisan pisco… an industrial scale still.

Which is sensible, since the piscos kept tasting just like home brew. The next stop was an artisan winery with four varieties of wine, where it looked like we woke up the bleary eyed owner. That was followed by another with four wines and four piscos; just for good measure, we bought a bottle of guanabana pisco to try as well. So the wine tour essentially degraded into a home brew tour and kind of felt a little like going caroling. 

Being the holiday, it was the day for the Inca Rally, an auto race driving through Peru. They can essentially go as fast as they’d like on the highways, but have to slow down in the towns and cities. We got passed by one of the cars in our travels.

Finally we made it to a restaurant for lunch to try to counteract some of the effects. I had a great seafood medley, and since Dave wasn’t with us in Puno when the rest of us tried it, he had cuy (guinea pig). It was done in a similar way to how Rox had it, and like her, he said it kind of tasted like KFC. Kentucky Fried Cuy?

We got dropped off back at the Plaza del Armas, and took tuk-tuks to our hotel, and it was time to nap/pass out for a bit and recover after all of the wines and piscos and a very substantial lunch. In around that time the wind started to pick up and a sandstorm blew in. It wasn’t as bad as the one Rox and I experienced in Egypt, but there was sand everywhere, you could taste it, feel it in your eyes and mouth, and it was just hard to breath. You couldn’t even see the sand dunes anymore.

That evening, after the sandstorm had ended, we went to the rooftop, sat on the couches yet, and decided to crack open some of our wines we had bought. We ate some snacks and were having a good time, minus the cool desert evening air. A few bottles in, I was about to turn to Nathan and tell him to stop shaking my couch, when I realized that he wasn’t even touching it, and everyone was doing the same. We all quickly looked around and realized that wasn’t the case. Everything shook gently for about 3 seconds, similar to gentle turbulence. That’s when we realized it was a small earthquake, as nothing else could move a 4 story, concrete building like that. After looking things up on the US Geological Survey website later, there was a magnitude 4.7 earthquake in northwestern Argentina. While the epicenter was about 400km away from us, the timing was exact.

We ended up going through 9 bottles of wine throughout the evening, and had a great time chatting until heading to bed about 1:00.

Puerto Maldonado to Ica

Sunday was essentially little more than a travel day. We woke up at the Explorer’s Inn at 6:30, had breakfast at 7:00, and boarded the boat to head back at 8:00.

It was about an hour ride back to the Infierno village port, where we boarded the minibus and headed back on the little dirt road to Puerto Maldonado airport. From there it was a direct flight to Lima with a 30 minute stop on the plane in Cusco. The flight to Cusco was about 40 minutes, and the one to Lima was about an hour; it was just really tough killing 3 hours in the airport before our flight. After arriving in Lima, we arranged a van taxi to a bus terminal (every company has their own, so it’s a little more challenging than a central bus station), and boarded our bus for the 4 hour trip south to Ica. We got into Ica quite late and it was just a check into the hotel and head to bed kind of night.

It was a long travel day with a boat, van, plane, taxi, bus, and other taxi.

Puerto Maldonado Day 2

The Explorer's Inn is quite a nice place out in the jungle. It is completely off the grid; they have a generator to supply power to the main dining room during the evening (mainly for compact fluorescent lighting and to recharge camera batteries). In each of the individual cabins (which have paper thin walls, thus all three rooms of us had conversations together), and it was lit by candlelight, which was pretty cool. Although tough to blow out the candle when you’re under your mosquito net. And there was only cold water.

On Saturday our wake up call was for 4:30am, so we could have breakfast at 5:00am, and depart through the jungle by 5:30am. The rainy season starts in the jungle on October 1, so it was wet on the trail. Thankfully they lent us rubber boots to use.

We started so early so we’d have a better chance of seeing animals, and weren’t disappointed seeing some monkeys right off the bat.

 

It was a 5km hike to the oxbow lake we were going to, and on the way we saw more monkeys, leaf cutter ants, a rubbler tree, brazil nut tree; just incredible to see such diversity. The greatest was the huge ironwood trees that are cut down for hardwood elsewhere, but are thankfully protected in the reserve.

After a couple hours of hiking we finally made it to the lake, and got to the blind to look at the giant river otters. They were a little anti-climactic since we’ve all seen otters at home, and they were a long ways away. After about 20 minutes, we got into canoes that were bolted together to become catamarans for a quiet cruise around the lake to see some more animals close up.

We saw a rufescent tiger-heron,

 

neotropic cormorant,

some other birds,

and many noisy blue-and-yellow-macaws that were flying over.

After about an hour on the water, we started our way back towards the lodge, and saw a huge strangling ficus, on which I spotted a chameleon.

 

Nathan decided to go Tarzan on one of the vines hanging down.

We saw an owl butterfly off the side of the trail, it is more impressive to think that the wing measures about 6 inches top to bottom.

We made it back to the lodge, had a delicious passion fruit juice, and took a bit of break/nap. There were so many hummingbirds outside of our cabin.

 

In the late afternoon we walked 1.5km out to the new canopy tower that they had built out in the jungle. It was mainly used for research purposes, especially for carbon-dioxide concentrations and global warming potential work.

With all the equipment on the top, we could only go to the top of the stairs, but it was still a good view from 42m up. Unfortunately it was cloudy and there wasn’t too much of a sunset to see.

From there it was the start of our night walk for 1.5km back to the lodge. We saw some tree frogs, stick bugs, a preying mantis, some spiders, grasshoppers, and many fireflies.

 

Once we got back to the lodge we went on the tarantula search, and Rox even came along. There were a couple along a tree just outside the lodge.

We had another great supper with some delicious soup (they have amazing soups everywhere in Peru) before having some rum and playing some crib. Quite an odd occurrence happened as Nathan was dealing. As he was dealing a card, a dead cockroach fell from the ceiling and landed on the table and the card hit him. It was such an odd thing and quite funny all the same. After playing some cards we headed off to our last night in the jungle, which is incredibly loud with all the insects, frogs, etc.