Ballestas Islands
From Wiki Sumaq Peru
The Ballestas Islands form an important wildlife reserve, with over 160 species of marine birds, including Humboldt penguins, cormorants, boobies, pelicans and, occasionally condors. There is also animal life, including sea lions, seals, dolphins and whales. The islands are off the coast of the Paracas National Reserve, 240 km south of Lima.
Wildlife and the Ballestas Islands
The Ballestas Islands are home to a great variety of wildlife. There are huge colonies of sea lions and unusual marine birds, such as - Humboldt’s Penguin, cormorants, Peruvian booby and Peruvian pelican. The islands surrounding seas are rich in creel, and associated upper food chain fish. They provide a safe breeding ground for sea lions, pelicans and a large variety of bird life.
The quantity of birds was particularly obvious from the huge amount of guano, covering the red rock of the islands with baked white clay - which, surprisingly enough, used to be Peru’s main industry, used extensively by Europeans for fertiliser. there are still a few guano factories on the islands, which guys live on for two months at a time like oil riggers.
The wildlife is espectacular. On each island sealions and rare birds, including playful Humboldt penguins, clumsy-looking Peruvian boobies, dignified cormorants and graceful pelicans, swarmed in uncountable numbers, jostling for space.
There is no need for binoculars, the guide on several occasions steering the boat so we were almost nose to beak with the birds. The animals even come to the tourists and visitors – sealions particularly play and dive around the boat, splashing each other, one of them ‘doing the shark’, sticking its flipper up like a dorsal to scare them.
Even though Vistors spend over an hour circling the islands, it doesn´t seem enough and they are normally sad when they turnd back towards Paracas.
These islands and cliffs are clearly a rocky paradise for wildlife and are definitely an essential visit for anyone interested in wildlife.
Tour to Ballestas Islands
The tour enabled the gang to get up close with much of the wildlife on the island. An astounding amount of birds and sea lions were seen all over the island. The locals take advantage of the bird droppings by collecting these twice a year. On the island, foot high rock fences can be seen which collect the wind blown droppings until collection time. This is then exported proving incoming for the locals.
A Travel adventure
"we booked onto a boat trip, the only way to see these protected islands, as tourists are not allowed to disembark there for conservation reasons. The islands are not visible from the shore, so we climbed into the panga without any real sense of where we were heading, excited by the guide’s promise that we were going to enjoy our trip. We soon were zooming out of the harbour into the open sea, overtaking many local fishermen on the way (including one guy who was pulling in a very large red octopus as we passed him!).
On the way to the islands we were also shown the perplexing Paracas Candelabra (even though it’s called a Candelabra it looks more like a cactus to me), similar in its way to the Nazca lines, but apparently carved more deeply in the rock.
This view of the Candelabra, with the sea crashing against it and the sound of sea-birds in the air, was very striking. Theories about this symbol, as with the Nazca lines, abound – it might be a religious marking, an ancient road sign (it points in the direction of Nazca) or, some say, a pointer to treasure left by pirates in the 17th century! Archaeologists have some strange theories…to me the symbol seemed most meaningful as an art object, an affirmation of human creativity.
We could now see the Ballestas Islands away in the distance; several tall islands of red rock rising from the sea. The guide swung the boat out towards them, revving the engine. The shoreline of the islands was quite rugged, as the sea can get pretty rough and the violent waves have eroded each island to form dozens of natural caves and arches. The islands were actually named for these distinctive rock-arches, with ‘Ballesta’ meaning an archer’s bow.
These rock formations were really beautiful, augmented by the different colours of stone, including every shade from smoky grey, to sand, to scarlet. The lack of any sign of human presence (there are no cruiseships or yachts as in the Galápagos) made certain islands look otherworldly, like the surface of some desolate planet"
References
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