Peru's Galapagos

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Seeing as the Galapagos is immensely expensive due to rise in prices in order to deter too many tourists from visiting, we opted for the Ballestas Islands, apparently the next best thing and significantly cheaper! We took a boat ride out pretty early and toured these islands just off the coast of Paracus. They are part of the national reserve, so we couldn't actually go onto the islands, but we circled them for around an hour.

I don't think I have ever seen so many birds in my life before! There were more blue footed boobies, pelicans, penguins, turkey vultures and other birds which I don't know the name of than there are people in Sutton Coldfield I imagine! And when there are masses of birds, there is masses of bird poop, and I mean MASSES! So much infact that a company comes and takes away a lot of it to use as fertiliser. I pity the man who has that job!

My favourite part of the trip was seeing the seals though. The beautiful, relaxed, sleek seals! Most of them looked half dead, collapsed over the rocks...which didn't look particularly comfortable at all! I especially loved the baby seals, they're so so cute!

I recommend for anyone who is opting to not go to the Galapagos to go to the Ballestas instead! It was truly worth it. Dad went to Isla de la Plata in Ecuador as well and said that the Ballestas was far better, with much more birds and seals (which the Isla de la plata didn't have).

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Photos

Seal
Having a stretch