Las Islas Ballestas

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As I set off for my morning adventure to Las Islas Ballestas, the tour began with a long explanation of how these islands came to be, and with a 30-minute boat ride ahead, the guide spared no detail. Basically, millions of years ago where Las Islas Ballestas are, a huge mountain range stood that even today gives the Andes a run for its money. But as the crust of the earth shifted, the tectonic plate where the Andes mountain range is now, once a flat plain land, collided with that of the gigantic mountain range. The plate that held the unknown mountain range ended up sliding under the plate that the Andes are on today, and over a period of a few million years, the tectonic plate of the unknown mountain range began to push the Andes mountain range into existence. At 2 millimeters per year, this process is still occurring today. As the Andes grew higher into the sky, these mountains sank deeper into the ocean, and today, only the summits of the tallest mountains in this forgotten mountain range can be visibly seen above water. These summits are what make up what are now considered Las Islas Ballestas. Tours to South Americathat specialize in Peru and Lima can arrange this trip to the islands for you.



On the way to the islands, we stopped at El Candelabro, or a candlestick-like figure that was carved into the side of a large hill. The origin of the drawing was unknown, but one of the theories proposed was that it was part of the Nazca lines. This was due to the very similar look of the drawing to the Nazca lines, and that it was actually pointing in the direction where the lines are located. But when examined, the top archaeological scientists found that there were many differences between this drawing and the ones in the Nazca lines. For example, El Candelabro was carved into the side of a mountain, it is about 50 meters long, and the carvings go about 50 centimeters deep, while the hieroglyphs that consist of the Nazca lines are actually on a very flat land, they are from 5 to 15 meters long, and the carvings are only about 10 to 15 centimeters deep. The most widely believed two theories are either that pirates in the early 18^th century carved this sizeable picture and used it as a signal of direction, or that the people of Paracas in the era of the Incan empire were responsible for carving it into the hill as a way to try and preserve their own culture.

Not even 10 minutes later, we were upon the islands. From afar they looked as any other islands would, and as the boat approached there didn’t seem to be anything special about them. However, once we were within a few hundred yards of them was a completely different story. There were thousands of birds crowding the rocks of the land mass and more that were flying overhead. There were even a few penguins waddling here and there. The air was filled with sounds from the birds native to the island, which were the Guanay bird and the blue-footed booby, and the smells of the droppings from the thousands of birds that had in fact managed to turn the island from its red and black color to a paler grey and yellow color.



Among other reasons, Las Islas Ballestas are very important because with the hundreds of thousands of birds, the amount of guano, or “bird droppings” is enormous, and these droppings are actually very rich in nutrients that are often found in soil. Therefore, although many scientists come to study the wildlife displayed on the island, many more workers come to collect the bird droppings with the intent that they will be used in the soil to help cultivate the very rich Peruvian fruits and vegetables.

The main attraction of the tour was the very numerous amounts of birds, but many of the people as well as myself took great joy in the sea lions posing on the rocks, and the penguins waddling down the less steep cliff edges as well. Once we had made an entire loop of the island, we began our 30-minute journey back to the coastal town of Paracas. Overall, the phenomenal amount of sea life that is contained on this chain of islands was an awe-inspiring spectacle and between the mysterious geographic hieroglyphs and the beautiful wildlife I thoroughly enjoyed the entire morning tour with everything that it had to offer. If this sounds interesting, I'd recommend checking out South America vacations and other way to travel in Peru.

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