Monday

I got up very early to catch a ride to the bus office at 3:20 am - the bus left for Paracas at 4 am. A pretty uneventful busride for 3.5 hours but I certainly don´t recommend the food - some sort of olive sandwich. Godd thing I wasn´t counting on that food to even be there.

Lots of tourists and activity in the morning to catch the boats for Islas Ballestras. I met a mother and daughter, Karen and Kate, from Pennsylvania and we had a great time talking during the slow times. Kate will be moving to California the same week I leave for Alaska. The boat ride out to the islands went past the Candelabra, similar to the Nasca line figures. Quite impressive. This part of the coast of Peru is a continuation of the Atacama desert in Chile, where it has not rained for 100 years in some spots, although the guide said Paracas gets 2 mm of rain a year. Then 20 minutes out to the islands, where there were more birds than I have ever seen in one place. There were cormorants, penguins, a grey bird and a black bird I forget the names of, but just thousands of them, flying all around. The odor was quite intense at times as well. Not too many sea lions as they said the ocean was warmer than usual and the small fish they eat had moved. Just birds everywhere you looked. The pelicans were gone as well, probably following the fish.



Back at the boat dock there were three pelicans on the beach and you could get pretty close to them. They are very big birds. I had breakfast at a small restaurant I was told to wait at until 11 am for the trip to the Paracas reserve. Absolutely nothing growing on the reserve, plantwise, but we did see two small lizards. Dramatic cliffs and evidence of the earthquake in 2007 - the connection between Cathedral rock and the shore fell into the sea. One of the beaches was used in the last scene of the first Planet of the Apes, when Charles Heston is on a horse and finds the statue of liberty sticking out of the sand. Paracas is a quechua word meaning lots of wind, and there was a constant onshore breeze that made it a very pleasant temperature.

A long wait for the bus back to Lima - bus was scheduled to leave at 5:30 but actually left at 6:45, and back in Lima around 10:15. A long and very nice day.

Sunday, May 30

The flights from LAX and Miami were uneventful but I was surprised to see my old boss Ed Kreil in the same row in first class. He was on his way to San Juan where he grew up. It is really a small world. I arrived in Lima around 10:30pm and had no problems with luggage and customs and exiting the airport. Lima certainly has changed in the last 12 years and all for the better I think.

I missed breakfast in my hotel as I had set my alarm on my cell phone for 8:15, but for some reason it didn´t change time zones, so it was 10am when I awoke. I quickly dressed and went to get a taxi to go to the Cathedral and go to mass - no, I am not getting religious, but wanted to see the Cathedral and it is usually closed on Sundays except for mass. But it was closed today anyway. I had arranged with the taxi driver to return at 4pm so I had about 5 hours in downtown Lima. I went to a restaurant recommended by the taxi driver, Tanta, and had a great empanada and coffee for brunch. There were two tourist guides at the church and they had a good map and I found a minerals museum very close. It was not in the Lonely Planet guide but was a great museum, in a beautiful converted home and not crowded.

I then walked down to the Art Museum and saw the couple of exhibits they had. Not too interesting but it did take up time. Back to the hotel to check on my trip tomorrow to Paracas and Islas Ballestras which leaves at the ungodly hour of 3:20am from my hotel. Then I perused the handicraft markets around the hotel before going to The Tiendita Blanca for dinner. It is a swiss style restaurant and had a wonderful quiche for dinner with ice cream for dessert. Now it is time to relax with some yoga (if I remember all the poses) and off to bed early for the early start tomorrow. No pictures taken today.

Two weeks until the trip starts

I leave for Peru on May 29 and will have a couple of days in Lima before I join the group of 12. I'm not sure what I will be doing with those days, but hope to find some interesting places to spend my time and perhaps find some cool minerals from Peru. I am still packing and trying to decide exactly what I will be taking and will not post again until after I land in Peru. My flights to Lima will hopefully be nice as I get to fly business and first class - thanks to frequent flyer mileage.

This trip was designed by myself and Ric Finch to originally be a Harvey Mudd College alumni trip. It did not work out that way but the trip should be great anyway. To see the scheduled itinerary go to here and read all about what was scheduled. I believe some of the hotels have already been changed, but everything else is the same so far.