5 September 2002

We are now in Pisco, which is 200km south of Lima. We stopped off at a surfing beach 52km south of Lima and enjoyed sleeping to the noise of the surf in our ocean front cottage. It is a Greek style village with a sheltered sandy bay and we had the place to ourselves as it was a week day and off season.

Most of Perus coastline is very dry desert, the houses are very basic and it rains so seldom lots of poor houses dont seem to have a roof!!! There was not a plant to be seen for 100km!

Today we went on a boat tour to Isla Ballestas which is supposed to have the highest density of bird life in one spot in the world!! Pat was in paradise as he loves birds of all varieties!!! and loves looking at them!!! We saw over half a million within the space of an hour. Belinda got impatient with the bus driver and took comand of the bus and drove it out of the village, with a bus full of tourists. Everybody was laughing, including the locals and the driver. One man asked Patrick where we were from and he said ¨why is it always the Australians that do crazy things¨.

Tomorrow, we are off to see the famous Nasca lines.