WEATHER: Hot and dusty 25C
HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Getting started on the next part of my Odyssey
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Got a little sunburned on the boat
BUYS OF THE DAY: Buying a new mobile phone for 35AUD
WORD OF THE DAY: “I think we’re going to get along just fine” – Roomy to Roomy
Beep beep beep – my alarm goes off at 5.45am after getting 4 hours sleep. I am a bit on a high as I am excited about getting onto the truck and meeting my new peeps.
Let me introduce you to my new home for the next 5 months. Her name is Rosita and she is massive. I hate to keep comparing her to Kitonga, our Africa truck, but it is all I have to go on and I can see what is better and not as good when looking at the trucks side by side. I got to the truck a little early and the introductions began. Mike was very helpful and told me which seats were spare, so no flies on me, I had the pick of the ‘newbie’ seats and I have to say I am quite happy where I am. The truck has a middle door. There are 2 tables at the very front of the truck and then 12 rows of actual seats in total the truck can hold 36 people. On this section we only have 13, and Mark was saying the next section there is only 12 of us and then we are getting around 20+ after the Rio section, but we lose around 6 people there as well. I am sitting in the second last row, but I have a window that opens on my seat and no post obscuring my view, I am on the passenger side of the truck, so I will be able to continue my waving again to the locals as we drive. We all have 2 seats to ourselves and there is massive overhead rack space. MASSIVE. The seat pockets are pretty much useless, but I will take the overhead rack space any day! There is a small esky fridge, a well-stocked library, a safe and there are 2 passengers who have keys to the truck, so we don’t always have to rely on Grahame to get us into the truck when we need to. That is a good idea. There are no lockers on the truck, our bags are stored underneath. So I will do what I did on my Africa trip and just get a small day bag and chock that with clothes for the next 5 days and leave my big backpack on the truck. It will be a pain lugging that thing on and off each day and I know that system worked well for me in Africa. Not having the locker doesn’t worry me now as the overhead space is massive, so I will be able to shove all my junk in there instead.
So after meeting half the group, we were on the road a little after 6.30am. We have a 3 hour drive to get us to a pier where we were going to catch a boat The Ballestas Islands and check out some of the wildlife. After 3 weeks of ‘wild life’ I am not sure how much more I can see that would come close to what I have seen, but how wrong I was this place was amazing. We arrived just into time for the 10.30am departure to take us to the islands. These spectacular islands, eroded into many caves and arches, provide shelter for thousands of seabirds and hundreds of sea-lions. Although the islands fall just outside the Paracas National Reserve they are protected by separate legislation. The islands are home to over 150 species of marine bird including the Humboldt penguin, cormorants, boobies and pelicans. Even condors have been known to visit. On the shores can be seen large numbers of sea-lions and in the sea it is possible to encounter dolphins and even whalesbut we didn’t see the 2 later today. The only way to get to the island is by taking an organised tour and are fairly inexpensive costing between US$10-15 and comprise a speedboat trip accompanied by a guide for about 2 hours. Boats depart between 08:00 and 10:30 from the fishing jetty at El Chaco port by the village of Paracas. Visitors are not allowed onto the islands but views of the wildlife from the boat were excellent.
We were seated on a speed boat, that kind of looks like the shot over jet in Queenstown. With life jackets on we headed out to the first set of rocks that had a massive candelabra-shape traced in the desert hill called the 'Candelabro' 50m in size. The usual, how did it get there, who put it there how long has it been there story accompanied the history of the picture before heading out further into the open ocean. It was a beautiful day, the sun in the sky, the wind in our hair and I am in Peru. Does it get any better? I feel I have a bit of infinity now with the ocean after being around it and on it for the last 28 days. The water is nothing compared to Antarctica and Galapagos, but it was beautiful all the same.
After 30 minutes from the mainland we found ourselves in bird paradise. The first thing that hit us was the smell. It was familiar, like sea lion smell, but when you had a closer look, there were thousands of birds and it was just the shite from them on the rocks. This place was awesome. There were hundreds, no THOUSANDS, of Boobies, and I had picked they were boobies before I was even told as they were doing to ‘ol diving into the ocean for food’ trick. It still makes me ‘wow’ at how they do their fishing! It looks so extreme for a bird! We saw sea lions, and they were at a different stage of the life cycle. A lot of the females were pregnant and are their babies are due to be born December through to March, whereas the Galapagos sea lions have already had their babies. Amy will be happy to know that I was still taking more photos of these guys; well they are Peruvian ones right, so they are ‘different’. There were millions of black cormorants, massive black pelicans and sprinkled though were some Humboldt penguins. They looked really cute as well, like all penguino’s of course! No exaggeration there were thousands of birds spread over massive rocks and one of the biggest rocks we could see had what looked a sprinkling of hundreds and thousands on the top of it and they were literally all birds, every single black dot, a bird. I would have loved to have gone and run through them to stir them all up and see them all in flight, but that wouldn’t be very responsible and also I wouldn’t know how the hell to get up there and we weren’t allowed off the boat. But it would have looked cool.
So we motored around the rocks, which themselves were amazing formations, with the arches and bridges in some of the formations. With the water breaking up over the lower rocks, sea lions playing in the ocean, sunny themselves and watching us, it was something that I have not seen in my wildlife history to date. It really was a sight to behold that is for sure.
So after boating around the rocks for just over an hour it was time to hit the open ocean once more for the 30 minute ride back to the mainland. What a great way to start my first day. We lunched at the port of Paracas and being so close to the ocean, you would be crazy not to have some form of seafood, it was literally walking out of the ocean and onto plates, so I got my old favorite calamari and it was delicious. I’ve had to borrow some money off Mark as I was yet to get to an ATM. The rate of exchange was 2.66 to the Aussie dollar, so to divide everything by 3 will be a cinch for the next 20 days that we are in Peru. We got some 30 minutes free time to wander around some market stalls and I bought 2 pairs of earrings for 6AUD. Things are so cheap here; I think I may have a spending frenzy here in the coming months. I’m looking forward to the silver, rings, bangles and earrings of course!
We only had to drive 20 minutes to our final destination of the town of Pisco. It was great to have the afternoon free and a great way to ease myself back into touring mode and getting out of cruising mode. It is also good to not have buffet for breakfast and lunch and to have just one meal at dinner, instead of 4 courses will hopefully bring me back into ‘normal’ eating habits again.
Apparently there isn’t too much to see or do in Pisco. I now have a new roomy, no Mala didn’t complain, but as there are 4 of us going all the way (154 days) we are going to share a room, so the configurations were changed and I now have an AWESOME new roomy, Kate from AUSTRALIA. As the evening wore on, we actually think alike and get along just fine, so I think we will survive 154 days no problems, but stayed tuned, it is a long time right!!!! So after checking in, dumping our bags, we met Mark at 3pm for him to orientate us and the hotel was literally a 7 minute walk from the main street. After walking the main street, that was the tour done and dusted and free time. I had 2 things on my list I HAD to do. One was to get a Peru sim card for my phone and the second to get some cash out.
As easy as it sounds, sim cards in Ecuador and Peru have proven difficult. After my experience with the company Claro in Ecuador, I decided to try the other major carried Movistar. Mark came with me as translator / helper to get me all set up, which I am glad he did as the whole process is not as simple as their African counterparts. We got the sim in my Blackberry for 6AUD that came with a small amount of credit and we were on our way back to the hotel via the ATM. When we got back I ripped out 3 messages to make sure that it worked and each one came back with a fail. Damn. Lucky Mark (well for me, maybe not Mark) was still in reception and told him about it not working. So after some internet searching and asking the receptionist we headed back our mate at the phone shop to see if we could get it sorted out. Thank goodness we are here for 20 days to make all the fluffing around worthwhile. So our mate was there, we fiddled with country codes, exit codes, international codes, taking my sim out and putting it in some-one else’s phone I mentioned could it be a Blackberry issue? I was told on the La Pinta for whatever reason, that this is the cause for a lot of people’s network problems, it’s a Blackberry issue. So I mentioned this to our mate and he said yes it could be that, so I bought a cheapie phone for 36AUD and was transported back to the 1990’s analogue phone days. My new Samsung GT-E1085i was the old fashion no bells and whistles kind of phone. Oh it does have an alarm and one game that looks like it was from an Atari game back in the 80’s, but if it works I will be happy to rest my beautiful Blackberry till I am able to use it again in South America. So again we tried to text now from the new phone still fiddling with country codes, exit codes and international codes with no success. Poor Mark was getting to his wits end and I was hoping I hadn’t bought the phone for nothing, when we tried it in some-ones else’s phone again and the text got sent. The last problem was that I didn’t have enough credit!!!! WOO HOO I am now back in the land of texting. Well I can send them, the question is will I receive them back? Thanks so much to Mark and phone dude, I feel so much better I am now back in the land of text. I know you’re saying it, leave it all behind me technohead, but I need to be in touch with people and home and was so worth the 1.5 hours of fluffing around.
I passed a photo developing place on my way back to the hotel, so I decided to stop in and get some pictures developed. I had put a few favorite prints onto a USB stick when I was in Paris and just hadn’t had a chance to get them printed, so with a 30 minute wait and paying 1.80AUD for 11 prints I decided make a call using my NEW phone to call Ethiopia, and for 10 minutes it cost me 8AUD. Not too bad and worth every cent to speak to my sweet sweet Zeme. Boy I have missed him.
So with a spring in my step, a new mobile phone in my pocket(it is analogue but still counts), some printed photos and cash in my purse I headed back to the hotel with an hour to kill before dinner. I did use my time wisely and got my backpack into some form of order. I am back to my ‘electronics’ bag. I have taken out my camping gear (sleeping bag, pillow and towel), I have packed my ‘day bag’ with 5-7 days’ worth of clothes and I have my ‘schnack bag’ back (I have missed thee). I may look like the bag lady again getting back onto the truck tomorrow, but it is nice to be able to get it all sorted and that I can leave my big bag on the truck. I am settling in just fine.
Dinner was at the hotel, one of the better restaurants in town, I used the hotel internet for 30 minutes which only cost me 1AUD and then it was time to hit the hay. I was tired and I guess the last 48 hours have finally caught up with me. I attempted to write my blog, but I was knackered, so I switched off the computer and I am sure 5 minutes after my head hit the pillow I was fast asleep.
What a great day, 153 left to go…………
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