December 15 - Pisco

December 16, 2024

Peurto San Martin

This is another industrial port similar to Lima. The difference is the shuttle is only about 20 minutes here and there is no traffic (versus 75 minute shuttle in Lima). The port is actually Peurto San Martin and the shuttle takes you to the nearby city of Paracas. They have a salt mine here and the send the salt to Canada for the roads. Our tour guide sounded a little skeptical about this, as he said "that's what they told me". But I'm sure it makes its way to Ontario and onto my car! They probably unload the salt boat at Sugar Beach!

Go Carting

The Beach in Paracas

This is one of the driest places on earth. They get 2 mm of rain per YEAR! The place looks like Mars.

From Paracas you can go to Ballestas Island which is a wildlife reserve, go go-carting and they also had a beautiful beach. You can also go from Paracas to Pisco and see the Nasca Lines. I started planning a private tour to see the Nazsca lines (ship tours was over 800 to start with and went up to 1300 just before the cruise), but decided not to, for many of reasons, but you can do a private Nasca Linea tour for about 300.00.

We ended up doing Ballestas Islands. Saw lots of birds, sea lions, penguins, and guano. You are not allowed on the islands (and you wouldn't want to go anyway). There are meters and meters of guano on the islands and they harvest it for fertilizer every 3 to 5 years. The wildlife population is down because of an El Nino last year and the bird flu. Bird flu killed over 1 million birds and the El Nino makes the water too hot for the wildlife and they head south. The birds have started to recover from bird flu, but still low in numbers.

Penguins (you may have to enlarge photo)

Sea Lions

There were birds and crabs and urchin and starfish, too. But hard to get good pictures of those from the boat.

On the way to the island, we stopped to view the Candelabra etching (similar to the Nazca lines) on the side of the shore. They don't know ow how old it is or what it was used for. It is carved into the limestone and the sand generally doesn't blow in such a way as to cover it. In the photo, you can see the limestone at the base of the photo.

One of the reasons for stopping in this port is Macchu Picchu. About 500 people left the ship in Lima to go to Macchu Picchu and they rejoin the ship here in Peurto SanMartin. This 3 day excursion is about the same cost as the 6 day tour we are doing post cruise.

Premium Package

I forgot a couple of items that are included in the Premium package. These are items I don't really care about - normally. One is photos. With the Premium package you get ALL (Iain Gordon) your photos digitally and 3 printed photos. They use facial recognition to send them to the right parties. Our next cruise will be with our 15 year old grandson and we'll have the Premier package, so we will probably go all in on the photos. The other items I missed was the prizes. With he Premium package every time you open your stateroom door when the casino is open, you are entered into a draw that could be anything from a shipboard credit to a free cruise. Another Premium package perk, is you have reserved seats for any of the production shows.

BD Drinks

Before Dinner last night we stopped by Good Spirits to chat with Ivan from Ukraine. I had a Vanilla Sky which was good and a Loch Ness Martini that was not so good.