Only 5 hours from Lima, it's pretty easy to pay a visit to
Paracas and the Ballestas Islands before concluding your trip. Pisco is a bit of a dump, so we stayed in Paracas at the
Hotel Mirador which was a short walk from the harbour,
close to the Paracas reserve and basically an altogether much nicer place.
The tourist trips out to the Ballestas Islands are the cheapest
way of doing it and you get enough time to see the Penguins and
some great photo opportunities. Keep your eye off the side of
the boat for Peruvian Diving Petrel whizzing past. We bought
our boat tickets in Pisco at Zarcillo Connections on the Plaza
de Armas - don't do the combined trip of Ballestas in the
morning and Paracas in the afternoon as you'll just end up
looking at sand dunes. We did the boat trip to Ballestas in the
morning and then walked from Paracas harbour to the reserve
entrance and to the observation tower. A bit of advice - either
visit the tower before midday or after about 2pm once all of the
tour groups have come through, and then the place is all yours.
The walk back to Paracas harbour was a bit of a slog and there
was no public transport or taxis. Be very, very, very careful of some
big bastard dogs on the beach by the luxury apartments.
Ballestas may well
be the poor man's Galapagos, but it's still the rich man's Bass
Rock!
Paracas harbour
has many boats traditionally decorated with Guanay Cormorants
Humboldt Penguin - 12+ on Ballestas
Peruvian Diving-Petrel - 1 from boat
Peruvian Pelican - common
Peruvian Booby - common
Neotropic Cormorant - common
Guanay Cormorant - common
Red-legged Cormorant - common on Ballestas
Little Blue Heron - 3+
Snowy Egret - common
Turkey Vulture - common
American Kestrel - 1
Chilean Flamingo - 70 from Paracas Tower
American Oystercatcher - common
Grey Plover - common
Semipalmated Plover - common
Wilson's Plover - 1 from Paracas Tower
Snowy Plover - 4+ from Paracas tower
"Hudsonian" Whimbrel - common
Spotted Sandpiper - 1 near main jetty in Paracas bay
Turnstone - uncommon
Sanderling - common
Semipalmated Sandpiper - commonish from Paracas Tower
Western Sandpiper - commoner than Semipalmated
Sand from Paracas Tower
Band-tailed Gull - common
Grey Gull - common
Kelp Gull - common
Grey-headed Gull - common
Peruvian Tern - common from Paracas Tower
Elegant Tern - 1+ off Paracas beach
Inca Tern - 5+ in Paracas bay and
common on Ballestas. Huge and fantastic!
Black Skimmer - common from Paracas Tower
Pacific Dove - common
Amazilia Hummingbird - 3+ along road by Hotel Paracas & 1
Mirador Hotel
Oasis Hummingbird - fem by Mirador Hotel
Peruvian Sheartail - fem by Hotel Paracas
Coastal Miner - pretty common along the road to the Paracas
reserve entrance. A pair were displaying at close range which
was perhaps the most pathetically half-arsed courtship display
I've ever seen.
