Paracas and the island of birds

A sea lion trying to seduce a nice female.

Paracas
My aunts, Rita and Collen, my parents, John and JoAnn, and my boyfriend, Seth, and I took a four hour bus ride to Paracas last week to spend a few days in the desert and going to see the Islas Ballistas. It was amazing! We stayed in a nice bungalow for $150/night that fit all six of us and we ate our meals and hung out by the pool at the VERY fancy 5-star Hotel Paracas (ex Hotel Liberador), aka "an oasis" as JoAnn would say.
Paracas is only a few miles from the town of Pisco which was destroyed by a 8.0 earthquake two years ago. It was quite eye-opening to be on a nice (but their wasn't AC and it was humid) coach bus from Lima driving down the PanAmerican highway passing though towns where most people live in extreme poverty - that means they make less than 1 sole (or 30 cents) a day. Traveling through Pisco, a town that once was 10,000, and is still struggling to rebuild their schools, hospitals, roads, etc., years after an earthquake makes it hard to imagine what Haiti must look like now and how long it will take them to get back on their feet again.
Islas Ballistas
Every 5-7 years teams of 200+ workers (most from the mountains) live in the shacks on the islands for 6-8 months and scoop guano (bird poop) all day, every day. I guess it's a good job since they get a steady income but our guide on Paracas said you could never pay him enough money to do that job. It smelled pretty bad from the boats - I can't imagine LIVING and WORKING in it all day! Ew! Our guide works everyday as a taxi driver/guide, his wife works seven days a week for 25 soles/day at the fish meal plant, one of 10 in the area that process and export sardines and fish meal to the US and other countries, and his 15 year old takes care of the 13 and 3 year olds, and 7 month old at home. It's a very different life than most we are used to in the states but they are that despite losing everything in the earthquake, they are grateful that everyone in their family survived the earthquake since hundreds of others weren't so lucky.
After the two-hour boat tour where we saw various birds (Humboldt penguins, Guanay and red-legged cormorants, Peruvian booby, terns, and lots of pelicans and gulls)

Thousands of cormorants flying out to sea to catch anchovies
and other animals (sea lions, seals and baby seals, and bottle-nosed dolphins) but no whales.

Seal (or is it a sea lion) resting on the rock in the Islas Ballistas


We went to have lunch in the Reserva de Paracas (a peninsula that is a national reserve for desert habitat) with pictureque views of the red sand beaches eating very fresh calamari and sole (a delicious white fish) and swam in the refreshing (albeit frigid) Pacific Ocean.

My Dad, Aunt Rita, Aunt Colleen, me, my Mom and Seth in the Reserva.


Work news
My abstract "Common carotid artery intima-media thickness in healthy Andean adults: The PREVENCION Study" was accepted as a poster at the World Congress of Cardiology in Beijing, China in June so I'll be traveling to my sixth continent in as many years and I can't wait! Send me your suggestions if you have been there or know anyone who lives there. Thanks
Happy Valentine's Day
Happy Valentine's Day Seth! Thanks for the wonderful roses.

Our last sunset in Lima before Seth had to go back to the cold tundra of Minnesota.


Happy belated 60th birthday to my wonderful uncle Jim!

Happy 26th birthday to my amazing cousin Molly Ann. Wish I could be there to celebrate! I'll make you a Pisco Sour this summer...

Plans this week
We're off to Iquitos, a city of nearly 500,000 in the middle of the Northern Amazon where it's about 100 degrees and humid. I'm not sure my mom and aunt will be able to make but but thank goodness our Ceiba Tops lodge has AC and a pool. I can't wait to be back in the jungle even if it's not-so-rustic.

Chau!