One of our reason for staying in Paracas was to visit Ballestas Islands. This set of Islands are often described as poor man’s Galapagos.

The Island are inhabited by penguins, many different type of birds and sea lions . The surrounding waters also has a large variety of sea creatures.

Logistics

We had booked the boat tour ahead of time and on the day of the tour we were able to walk to the meeting point from our hotel ( Paracas Resort) .

The meeting point is in the center of the town . Once everyone is there the tour guide walks you to the dock to get you loaded on to the boat . This is a very efficient process.

You are provided life jackets . The boat leaves from the port passing other boats both recreational and fishing.

Tour

You have to travel on the boat for about thirty to forty five minutes before reaching the Islands. On the way there you have the Paracas mountains on one side and the open sea on the other side .

On one of the Paracas Mountain you can see a figure drawn thousands of years ago by the native people of Peru . The figure looks like a cactus but is called a candelabra. In case you don’t get to see the Nazca lines this is a good sample !

The islands are all small with interesting rock formations. See photos below . They are also covered by different type of birds !

We were able to see penguins ( a bit far ) , different type of birds local to the region, sea lions and different type of mussels.

Penguins

Sea Lions

Birds

The tour included a guide on the boat who shared some interesting history and facts about the islands .

The poop from one type of birds that are native to these islands is considered to be the best fertilizer in the world ! As a result there are guards who live on one of the islands whose purpose is to collect bird poop !

Conclusion

We spend about 30 to 45 minutes going around the different islands on our boat spotting different birds and sea lions . Once we were done we were dropped back at the dock .

Overall it was nice to get out on the water and see the islands and animals.

If you plan to stop by Paracas this tour is definitely a good one to cover .