March 8, 2015 San Martin / Paracas

We had a couple of sea days before San Martin.  We didn’t do too much.  Had fish and chips with a Guinness at the Pub Lunch which they do several times on sea days in one of the bars.  We also went to a seminar on acupuncture which was enlightening.  Neither of us signed up for treatments, but may look into it further when we get home.  I watched “The Hundred Foot Journey” on one of our TVs in the cabin while Michael slept.  Happily, I don’t have to do our laundry now, and Michael even sent his shoes for polishing, also a perk of being Elite.  And we had little canapés delivered to the cabin before the formal night which we had with our coconut rum liqueur.

Today was San Martin.  It’s a large port seemingly in the middle of nowhere.  The town of Paracas was a 30 minute shuttle ride around the bottom of the horseshoe shaped bay.  This is real desert country - they only get 1-½ ml of rain a year.  There wasn’t a single weed growing in the countryside.  Our tour took us into Paracas where we caught a boat out to Islas Ballestas which is billed as the Peruvian Galapagos.  On the way we saw the Candelabra which is a 500 foot high geoglyph carved into the rocks.  The first reported sighting was in 1870 but no one knows what it means. Then onto the islands which are home to thousands of sea birds as well as Humboldt penguins and sea lions.  It was amazing to see (and smell).  Every 7 years 100+ men spend 3 months on the islands collecting the guano which they sell for fertilizer.  There were hundreds of sea lions including many babies.  We really enjoyed this tour.

 Next up is Lima.