We recently stopped over in the town of Pisco on the South coast of Peru for a short while in order to visit the Ballesta Islands and Paracas Reserve. The Ballesta Islands are sometimes called 'the poor man's Galapagos' for their numerous bird populations. During our boat trip to the islands, we saw:
- Cormorants, gulls, pelicans, small shore birds
- Humboldt Penguins
- Peruvian Boobies
- Inca Terns (the only endemic species to the islands)
- Sea lions
We then visited the land portion of the Paracas Reserve, which is all desert. It rains an average of 2mm a year, so pretty much never. The landscape was fascinating - it is surprising how many colours a desert with no vegetation can contain! We learned about the natural resources that are extracted from the reserve:
- road salt (with a high dirt content) for export to Canada
- table salt
- fish and shellfish
- guano (for fertilizer)
- seaweed for collagen (sent to Canada for processing)
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