On our second day in Pisco we got up early in the morning to see the reason of our visit to the destroyed town, the Ballestas Islands. They are special because of the number of various bird species living there and besides the birds, you can see humbolt penguins and sea lions. We were lucky and saw them all! Amazing. But the islands are very smelly too, they don't mention that in any of the guidebooks.
After the islands, we continued our journey south. Before lunch, we stopped at a pisco destillery, where we tried not only different types of pisco, but to our surprise also jam, honey and chocolate! We are not sure how they are related to pisco, but everything was tasty.
And then finally, we stopped in an oasis in the middle of the desert to do sandboarding and to be driven around on sand buggies. The ride in sand buggies means getting in a strange vehicle and being driven up and down the sand dunes at very high speed. Scary but fun! Sandboarding is similar to snowboarding, except that most people do not attempt to stand up. Mat tried, but did not last very long! Everyone just lies on their belly and slides down,screaming.
We finished our eventful day with a free round of pisco sour from our guide and a nice dinner to celebrate Peru's Independence Day.
