Another semi-early morning… Well, not that early. The hotel was kind enough to make us breakfast at 7:00, not 7:30, so we could get picked up at 7:30. 

The car took us to the tour office, and then we went to the boat that would take us to the Ballestas Islands. 

The boat ride was fun, if a little chilly.  Then we saw the birds. SO many birds. And the starfish. And the sea lions. And the penguins. SO damned cute! Those are best explained in pictures…

After tooling around for a while, we headed back in, stopping by a buey where more sea lions were chilling out. So cute. 

Then we saw the Paracas Camdelabra, another carved out line drawing similar to the Nazca Lines. 

Back on shore, we had a bit of time. We found some empanadas and coffee, wandered around town for a bit, and then it was time for the Paracas National Reserve tour. 

There were five of us in the SUV, plus Leidy, our guide. We got to check out various vantage points and beaches, all beautiful. There’s something super cool about the desert meeting the ocean so abruptly like that. 

Our final stop was for lunch at La Tia Fela, where Matt and I decided to eat a whole fish. Sea bass… SO GOOD!!

The car took us back to the tour office, and we went back to our guesthouse. 

After showers and chilling out for a little bit, we went out to dinner at Karamba Restobar. Scallops for me, pasta with prawns for Matt, Oveja Negra beer for both of us… Yum!

Then back to the hotel and bed. 

We didn’t have to check out this morning until 11:00, which is really nice… We went up to breakfast and then chilled out in our room until it was time to go. 

We hoofed ourselves and all our crap to the PeruHop meeting point hotel, where we checked our bags and took off to wander around for the day. 

We found the Paracas sign, and this cool monument that looked like a sailboat’s sails and had some good ceviche and pisco sours for lunch. We also grabbed drinks at a convenience store and sat at the tables out front to drink then, Colombia style. Fun!

Eventually we gave up and went to hang out in the hotel lobby where we were meeting the bus. 

The bus ride took us to an old hacienda (Hacienda San José) where slaves were kept and smuggled… It was interesting to go down in the tunnels where they were kept. I wasn’t expecting that stop, and I wasn’t thrilled – I just wanted to get to Lima – but it was pretty cool to see. And the grounds were beautiful!

Eventually we got to Lima. We checked in, dropped our bags in our room, and went wandering for a little while. It was Saturday night, after 10:00 pm, and the streets were HOPPING! So much fun to walk around a city which was actually lively! 

Unfortunately, we were exhausted, so our wander was pretty short lived. I’m excited to see more of Lima tomorrow! We did, however, find an ice cream shop where we indulged…

Here’s the video: