Islas Ballestas - the poor man's Galapagos

In Peru we were advised by some fellow travellers to visit Islas Ballestas nicknamed 'the poor man's Galapagos' because you see a ton of wildlife similar to what you see in the Galapagos but for a portion of the cost ($18) and without the flight.

Candelabra

The town of Pisco is where you are supposed to pick up the tour but it didn't sound very safe based on Lonely Planet.Thankfully our hostel in Huacachina offered a day trip there. It actually ended up being the same cost for us to take the tour from our hostel which included the one hour travel there and back versus if we had done it on our own.

The tour itself isn't very long with you spending 1.5-2 hours on a boat around the island but we were really glad we did it, even though we had visited the real Galapagos Islands. We saw dolphins jumping in the water beside our boat. We also saw the famous three-pronged Candelabra, a gaint figure etched into the sandy hill which no one really knows the meaning behind - kind of like the Nazca lines.

On the tour I saw more  birds then I have ever seen before. Just a warning to anyone taking this tour you might want to wear a hat, in case of bird droppings...I had a close call. We saw Cormorants, Humboldt penguins, boobies and pelicans. We also saw hundreds of sea lions. Apparently one of the beaches is called maternity beach because that is where all the sea lions go to have their babies, so we got to see lots of baby sea lions. 

Ica - Winery

Aside from sandboarding there isn't much to do in Huacachina so one night we decide to do the night winery tour in Ica. The winery is normally not active except for the two weeks of the year when the grapes are ripe and we just happened to be there during those two weeks. We paid 40 soles ($16) for the tour and were picked up in a "party bus" that took us to the winery. Once at the winery we got a tour and found out that in addition to wine, they also make Pisco (a popular Peru liquor).

Trevor after his Pisco shot

On the tour they actually had us try a glass of Pisco that was 70% acholoc. Everyone in our group took a sip before making a disgusted face at how strong it was. Once we had all sampled the Pisco the person maning the equipment then re-filled the cup and cugged the entire glass. We found out that since the winery is only active for 2 weeks they actually encourage the employees to drink so they work the long hours during this time.

Crushing grapes

After seeing how Pisco was made we then got to help with the grape crushing. They took us to this big cement pit that was filled with grapes. They then asked who had the dirtiest feet. This was pretty much all of us since we had all been in the desert all day wearing flip flops. After showing how dirty our feet were we were then told to jump into the grapes and that dirty feet were actually good for the wine and made it taste better. So we all jumped into the grapes and started crushing away. It was actually pretty disgusting, you would actually  sink down til the grapes were just above your knees. While we were crushing the grapes they then started serving us different types of wine. It was at this point in the tour you could tell they were out to get us all drunk. They started with a shot of Picso (this time the normal 40% alchohol) and you couldn't refuse the shot. Also if you made a disgusted face after taking the shot they made you take a second. They also filled your cup with the different types of wine and would never let you have an empty glass.

After half an hour of crushing grapes and drinking they then cleaned off out legs and took us to an area to continue drinking and encourage dancing. It was at this point that you could see everyone really starting to get drunk. Trevor and I weren't really a big fan of the wine and Pisco so we weren't in bad shape at the end of the night but everyone else on our tour except one girl who didn't drink much either. The bus ride back to Huacachina was quite interesting with at least 5 people on our bus throwing up and a ton of very drunk people. So if you are in Haucahina and want a good evening of entertainment and drinking the Ica wine tour can definitely be an interesting option.

Trepanned Skull

If you are looking for other stuff to do around Ica we also visited the  Museo Regional de Ica where we spent an hour looking at Inca artifacts, weavings, preserved mummies, trepanned skulls (they used to deform their skulls) and shrunken heads.

Huacachina - Sandboarding!

After Lima our next destination was Huacachina. This was actually the place Trevor was most looking forward to. Trevor is a big snowboarder and with us travelling around South America during our winter, he was missing snowboarding. So to make up for this we were going to go sandboarding in the desert. We had to take a 4 hour bus from Lima to Ica and from Ica we took a 10 minute taxi ride to Huacachina.

Huacachina is a gringo paradise, made up of mountainous sand dunes that surround a picturesque lagoon. Its a tiny little town with a population of 200 people that survives compleletly off of tourism.



All the hostels have dune-buggy/sandboarding tours however the sandboards they use are cheap boards with just velcro straps for your feet. Trevor wanted to do the professional sandboarding so we spent the afternoon  looking to see where we could rent professional sandboards. During our investigating we came across this place Peru Sandboarding that was actually run by professional  competing sandboarders. It costed more then double (80 soles or $32) what we would pay with our hostel but they provided professional sandboards, an hour of lessons, and 3 hour dune-buggy/sandboarding tour. If you are going to Huacachina I would highly recommend you do the sandboarding with them over anyone else.

I have never snowboarded before and was actually nervous about sandboarding because I though it would hurt my hip but I wanted to give it a try. Turns out I absolutely loved it!!! I probably won't have liked it as much if we didn't rent professional sandboards and lessons but thankfully we did and I was even able to make it down a couple hills without falling.

If you are going to visit Huacachina or try sandboarding, here are a couple tips:

Cheap hostel sandboards

1) Rent professional sandboards - the hostels will provide you with the cheap strap-on-sandboards for free but there is no way you can go down the hill standing up properly in those. Because you're not strapped in properly you can't actually slow yourself down or stop properly.  A friend of our actually fell and got a conciousion using them. Most people that use the cheap boards just use them as sleds and go down the hills on their stomach. This can be fun too but if you really want to try sandboarding go professional.

2) Get lessons -  I specifically went with the company that offered an hour of sandboarding lessons and it greatly enhanced my sandboarding experience especially since I have never snowboarded before. They split our group into two groups: snowboarders and beginners. This was great because Trevor didn't need to worry about me and could practise going down with the other sandboarders while an instructor worked with us beginners showing us how to control our speed and slow down. When we got to the first hill the instructor also went down beside me till I was confident doing the hills by myself. I was even able to make it down the hills without falling thanks to the lessons. The hostel tours say they provide lessons but everyone we met said no instruction where provided, including the time we went with our hostel.

Size and steepness of the hills we went down

3) Go with a professional company not your hostel - besides the equipment and lessons using a professional company is worth the investment because everyone is using professional equipment so they take you to bigger hill. When we went with the professional company we did 10+ hills and that's all we did for 3 hours. It's a smaller group and you all go down faster so you get to spend more time sandboarding instead of waiting for everyone in the group to get down.  When we went with our hostel we only got to do 3 hills which were smallers and we were only out for 1.5 hours.

4) Watch the sand with your camera - you get sand everywhere and this includes your camera. There were a couple peoples, including us, whoses camera got messed up because of sand getting stuck in their camera. So if you really care about your camera don't take it with you.

5) Climbing sand dunes is hard -  climbing up sand dunes on your own is HARD. When we first got there we though we could just rent the sandboards and climb up the sand dunes and do it on our own. That was until we tried to climb a sand dune. I thought sandboarding might hurt my hip but the sandboarding itself didn't, it was trying to climb the sand dunes that did.  The dungs-buggys actually drive you to the top of the various sand dunes so you don't kill yourself trying to climb up. I have the best brother though because sometimes the sand dunes where too steep for the dungs buggy to go all the way to the top and you had to climb a portion of it yourself, carrying your sandboard. Whenever this was the case my brother won't let me carry my own sandboard because of my hip and would insist on carrying both his own and my sandboard up. 

6) Be prepared for your arms to hurt  - I'm not sure if it's the sandboarding, carrying your board, or holding on for dear life in the dungs buggy that causes this but the next day everyones arms hurts and it actually hurt for a couple daysafter.

7) Bring water - No matter what, you will be breathing in sand while sandboarding and riding the dungs-buggy, so having water  will be appreciated. Plus you do build up a huge thirst sandboarding, especially if you have to walk up any sand dunes.


8) Insist on googles - most places won't give you googles unless you ask and just tell you to wear sunglasses. Trevor however insisted on google and I'm really glad he did. The couple we did  lessons with actually regretted that they just had sunglasses because as mentioned before the sand goes everywhere so having your eyes fully enclosed is best.

9) Wear sunscreen - The sandboarding tours take place at sunrise/sunset because the sand is faster when it's cool and it's too hot to sandboard during the day. This doesn't mean you can skip the sunscreen though. The sun reflects against the sand and even though we both wore sunscreen we still ended up burnt.

10) All there is to do is sandboard - there is really nothing else to do in Huacachina but sandboard, so when booking a hostel look for one with a pool and some nice hammacks because that is where you will spend your day until you can go sandboarding in the late afternoon.

11) Falling on sand doesn't hurt as much - I think one of the good things about attempting sandboarding before snowboarding was that the falls don't hurt as muc. It's actually quite soft and my butt didn't hurt the next day. It was also good when I was first learning and didn't know how to stop because I just dragged my hand in the sand to stop myself. The only thing you need to watch out for is the somersault, thankfully I didn't do it but I did watch a couple of the snowboarders do a somersault fall which did not look like fun.

12) Getting started is the hardest part- I found getting the sandboard going to be the most  difficult part. Part of it is being up there and thinking can I really make it down that but once you work up the courage to get started I found it hard to get started. At the top of the sand dune you are usually diaganol but you need to straighten out your board to take off and it's not easy getting straightened out. When you first start you are also trying to gain control over your speed because if you just go straight you go really fast which is  dangerous so you actually want to try and curve a bit but once you have control over your speed its smooth sailing and so much fun. If I fell it was usually at the top while I was trying to gain control over my speed.

13) More wax = fast board - You will be given a candle and this is what you use to wax the bottom of your board. Before each run wax the bottom of the board and the more wax you have on the bottom the fast it will go - so the more the better.


14) Go on a dungs buggy tour - Even if you don't want to sandboard do the dungs buggy ride.  It really is a roller coaster and a ton of fun.

15) It's addictive - as mentioned I didn't think I would like it but after my first day on the hills I was addicted and talking about staying more then the intended 3 days to get more sandboarding in.

Lima, Peru

So our first stop in Peru was Lima, the largest city in Peru with 7.6 million people, making it home to one-third of the Peruvian population. The city itself is split into different suburbs that are dramatically different from one another. We stayed in Miraflores which is where all the rich Peruvians live and gringo ground zero. It looks nothing like the rest of Peru and really is a tiny North America. You can find all the typical store/brands and I even got my Starbucks (coffee in South America is actually quite disappointing unless you like instant coffee - although I have started to like coca tea).

Miraflores is quite pretty with lots of beautiful parks. We stayed right across from Parque Kennedy and I have never seen so many cats in my life. You usually see gangs of street dogs everywhere in South America but at this park they actually have hundreds of cats. We were told it was because of the mice and rats problem in Peru.  They also have outdoor gym equipment scattered throughout some of the parks.  So you can jog along the path and then stop at the various spots along the way for a full body workout.

Our first couple of days were spent wandering around Miraflores, we visited all the various parks and beaches. I was actually quite happy we had no intention of spending time at the beaches in Lima because they are not your typical sandy beaches.  They don't actually have sand but are rather rocky and kind of smell. Locals seemed to be the only people actually swimming in the water  but there were a ton of surfers. The view of the coastline from the cliffs above is quite nice thought.

In Miraflores we also visited the Huaca Pucllana which is a restored  adobe pyramid built in AD 400. It was actually quite interesting because  we found out that a lot of the surrounding area of Miraflores was actually built on these pyramids.


Being in Miraflores we felt completely safe however we didn't feel like we were seeing the real Peru. One our third day we decided to take a trip to Central Lima and check out some of the sites there. Lima is huge and since we had  time constrains we opted for a taxi over public transit. This was our most expensive taxi ride costing 20 soles ($8) and taking us about 45 minutes.  It was also probably the most interesting part of our visit to Lima.  In Miraflores it's just tourist so there are lots of white people, its clean, its green, and hardly any police. In central Lima the traffic is crazy, pollution increases, there are tons of people, the buliding are older and more interesting,  we get stared at more, and the police presence increases two-fold. The police presence was one of the big things that really shocked us. We had seen hardly any police until we got to central Lima where we saw lots, in full riot gear  and even army tanks parked on the streets.


In central Lima we visited the Museo de la Inquisicion, which provided a history of  how they use to torture prisoners - this was Trevor's museum choice. We then visited the Monasterio de San Francisco and if there is anything I would recommend you see in Lima, it would be this. We had to wait around for about a half an hour for an English tour but it was worth it. The Monastery itself is beautiful but I think the thing that facinated us the most was the catacomb filled with the bones of 80K+ people. It's definitely not for the faint of heart and I have to admit it creeped me out a bit because you are literally walking through tunnels filled with millions of real human bones. In some parts the bones are actually sorted from when they were trying to get a sense of how many bodies were down there. So they have containers filled with just human skulls then another box filled with leg bones, etc. They also had holes that looked like wells, 10 meters deep just filled with all the bones.

Another thing I should let those visiting Peru know about is Pisco Sours. The restaurants and bars will offer you free Pisco Sours if you enter the bar or eat at their restraint. Our first Piscor Sour was at a restaurant and we actually liked it, it tastes kind of like an Amaretto Sour. We then decided to check out a couple of the bars where we had three more free Pisco Sours. That night I ended up throwing up and though I had gotten food poising again (we hadn't drank enough for it to be from drinking). Turns out it was the Pisco Sours that made me sick. We later found out from other travelers that they had a similar experience after consuming the drink which is not that suprising when you find out they use a raw egg when making it. So just beware that the Piscor Sours may make you sick although Trevor was fine.

Journey to Peru

My original plan was to spend the month of February in Peru but our plans changed and we now wouldn't be hitting Peru till March. So due to our time constrain we decided to skip the top half of Peru and head straight to Lima. The South of Peru is where all the typical tourist stops are, so we figured we would just stick to those.

To get to Lima from Ecuador we were going to have to take a 26 hour bus from Guayaquil straight to Lima. I personally wasn't looking forward to this since I don't sleep well on buses and get irritable after 6+ hours in a confined space but a plane ticket was going to cost us $400 each, so we opted for the bus route. There are a couple different bus companies that do this route but for such a long bus ride we decided to spend the extra money and go with Cruz del Sur which is suppose to be the top Peruvian bus company. We were really happy when we discovered that we could book our bus tickets online in English which was really helpful since this is a popular route with only three buses a week, so you need to book in advance and we were still in Montanita at the time.

Upon arriving at the bus terminal the first thing we were really grateful for was that they checked our bags right away for us. Normally you need to carry your bag around until you board the bus but that wasn't case with Cruz del Sur which was really good because we had an hour before we needed to board and wanted to eat without having to lug and watch our bags.

The bus itself was a double decker bus with seats that declined to 160 degrees for you to sleep. It also seemed like one of the safest companies, with seat belt on the bus. They also had a policy where the buses max speed is 90km with digital speedometers located on both floors so you can watch how fast the driver is going and if he goes above 90km it beeps. They also switch drivers every 4 hours which is good for a long drive like ours. The bus also had WiFi,  headsets, blankets, pillows and a stewardess that served our meals. The meals themselves weren't the greatest, pretty much your typical airline food but we had visited the grocery store ahead of time and stocked up on our own food for the ride. We actually stocked up on a lot of fruit and it wasn't till we were crossing the boarder that we realized we might not be able to bring fruit over but we never got in trouble so I guess it was ok.

We left at 6pm and after about 5 hours we hit the Ecuadorian boarder. On the bus they had given us all the forms we needed to fill out but we all still had to exit the bus and wait in line at the Ecuadorian boarder which took about 30 minutes. They then loaded us all back on the bus to take us across to the Peru immigration. The Peru immigration office was not what I would have expected, it was essentially a trailer off the side of the road and if we had come across on our own we probably would have missed it. At all previous boarders we were use to seeing lots of police or military but at this boarder we only found one and that was after search for any.

The worse part of the Peru immigration was the mosquito. They only had one immigration person for the 45 people on our bus and as we waited, we all got eaten alive. We then headed back onto the bus and everything seemed to be going smoothly until 2 hours past the boarder we passed a police check point. They made us all get off the bus, show our passports and searched our carry-on. They also searched the luggage compartment and pulled off 5 bags. The people who owned the bags were then asked to come forward while they watched as their bag get searched by the police and all the people from the bus looked on. The worst part about this check point however was the cockroaches. I have never seen so many cockroaches in my life and it was actually hard walking without stepping on one. So while the bags were getting searched, we just hoped none of them would crawl into our bag. Turns out there was nothing in the bags they searched so we were allowed back on the bus and our journey continued.

I do not sleep well on buses so I took sleeping pills hoping that would help and it seemed to do the trick because I was able to fall asleep. I think it also helped that the seats reclined too. Once I woke up I could tell we weren't in Ecuador anymore, the landscape had completely changed and we were now in the desert with sand dunes all around us. I also noticed the change in poverty level, with very sad looking shacks that the people lived in along the roadside. I'm definitely starting to learn how diverse South America really is.

Desert scenery

The houses

Carnival and Guayaquil

Our Spanish teacher from the jungle (Ivan) was the first person to tell us about Carnival in Ecuador. He told us the best place to celebrate it is in Guaranda however once we learned that Carnival is essentially a big water fight we weren't sure we wanted to spend it in Guaranda. The problem is that in Ecuador they only have cold water and Guaranda is cold. So the idea of getting soaked with cold water in a place that isn't warm didn't appeal to us. That is why we decided to spend part of Carnival in Montanita, at the beach.  Only problem was that Montanita didn't seem to celebrate it as authentically as we had heard.We were told that during Carnival you would get soaked by water guns, water balloons, coloured flour and foam. There would also be lots of drinking and dancing, as is always the tradition in South America.

Carnival in Montanita

Well Montanita had the drinking and dancing, the only thing different for Carnival seemed to be getting sprayed with coloured foam from a can. Every night we went out during Carnival we would get sprayed with foam and I also got hit by one water balloon but that was about it. So we kind of felt like we didn't really get to experience the real Carnival celebration.

Carnival started on Saturday and went till the Tuesday so we left Montanita Monday afternoon, to avoid the mass exodus that would be happening the following days and headed to the largest city in Ecuador,  Guayaquil. When we arrived at the bus station, it was the first time I didn't feel like I was in South America. I actually felt like I was in a North  American mall. We didn't arrive until late afternoon so we spent out first night hanging out at our hostal pool however the next day and final day of Carnival we decided to go exploring the city.

Along Malecon 2000

We took a taxi into town and were shocked to see how dead the city was. We heard everyone from the city heads to the coast on the weekends but we didn't expect the largest city in Ecuador to be so dead. Everything was closed and we really only saw tourists, we actually ran into one of the Argentina families that was at the Amazon Jungle with us. We took a stoll down  Malecon 2000, which is a 2.5 km waterfront boardwalk with some beautiful parks along the way. At the very end of the boardwalk was a cute little hillside village covered in houses painted bright colours.

 

Trevor getting soaked

Carnival in Guayaquil

The day was hot and humid and my brother and the guy we were with were both tired but I insisted that we climb up the cobblestone alley and windy stairway to explore this colourful village. It was super cute and as we started to climb up we realized that these were actually peoples homes and these people were celebrating Carnival. I started taking pictures of one group celebrating, who happy posed for pictures. Then my brother, who was really hot from the heat asked one of the kids if they would wet him. They were all it and dumped a pail of water on him and started to paint him. They also shared a glass of beer with us and we had learned that it was rude not to accept, so we had a sip.  We then said goodbye and carried on our walk up through the hillside village, to then discover that around every curve on the stairway up was another Carnival party.

As soon as they saw my brother soaked and painted, they knew we were up for celebrating Carnival and won't let us go by without getting us a little wetter, adding more paint and sharing their beer. This happened the whole way up so by the time we had reached the top I had watched by brother go from blue-red-green-brown-black as people kept adding colours. The good news was we were all cooled off from the water and because it was so hot we actually appreciated getting wet.

On top of the hilltop village

Once we reached the top and got some nice pictures from the hilltop we then had to take the same path down, with the same processes taking place all the way down. Once we reached the first group we had started celebrating Carnival with we actually stayed and hung out with them for a bit. Trevor played soccer with them while I watched with the girls.We were actually really happy we got to see Carnival in Guayaquil because it was more of the authentic experience we were hoping for and it was actually a lot of fun and refreshing when it was so hot out.