Pisco, the Capital, and the Beach

We travelled up the coast to a town called Pisco to set up a tour of the Ballestas Islands which are supposed to be the `poor man´s Galapagos´. When we arrived we noticed most of the buildings where destroyed and learned later that a huge earthquake hit in 2007 and the town is still slowly trying to rebuild. We headed to the boats at about 8 am with out group - it was raining and visibility on the sea wasn´t very good so we sat around for about an hour and a half before they told us they would have to cancel the tour. Bummed, but what can you do. A guy in our group was signed up to help rebuild houses in the area for a month; personally we could not imagine spending a month there and actually decided just to hop a bus from Pisco to Lima that day.

Lima is huge - much bigger than I ever imagined and fairly spread out. We stayed in Miraflores which is right next to the coast. There are quite a few parks around the city and a fountain park in the city center we checked out. The same guy that designed the Bellagio´s did all the fountains in Parque de Reserva which is pretty cool but really weird to have in the middle of the city. At night they play a bunch of music and have a laser light show to go with the fountains. Basically shopped around a bit and went to some really good restaurants. Ben bought a cookbook on Peruvian food and we tried some of the places it recommends in the back, including a buffet lunch at El Senorio del Sulco. It was amazing but we both regretted eating as much as we did before getting on our bus from Lima to Mancora. Not really what you should do prior to an overnight bus!

We stayed in Mancora for 2 days. It is a great beach that most people come to hang around for the surfing. We just relaxed with all the fresh seafood and got roasted on the white sand beaches. A really nice change of pace from the city!

That´s it for our Peru trip and now we are off to Ecuador!