Palomino Islands

Friday November 18

Today was Bad Smell Day. It started with our taxi ride. Heather and the kids have left us to go to the jungle, so today was just Pete and us. Carlos who set up our tour today sent a taxi for us. He said 9 am but the taxi was there at 8:30 already. It smelled bad. Again, the driving amazed us. Hardly any stops or lights to get through an entire city. It would have taken us 5 times longer, back home. He dropped us off at the pier beside the naval museum, where Carlos met us. He said we had to wait, so we asked for a banos. He walked all over for us looking for one, one restaurant said the whole area was without water. Finally he got us into the submarine museum, the nice guy with "bouncer" on his shirt let us in. We watched a bunch of guys carry out a crashed boat. The engine followed.

We had to wait on the pier for an hour before our tour started. They had to process everyone's info since the tour was full. Then they put us into a smaller boat to tender us to the bigger tourist boat.

It was rather similar to our Bellastas Islands boat tour, but longer (4 hours). The boat crew handed out their version of gravol and Anton took one, but Frankie didn't want to take any strange drugs. Soon she was regretting that decision and had to make a quick switch with Pete to be near the rail.

We started around a few big islands, one of which used to be used as a prison. Then 3 smaller islands make up the Palomino Islands. There were far fewer birds and far more sea lions. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of sea lions. There was a lot of noise, and the worst smell we've ever smelled in our lives. Frankie had to put a kerchief over her nose the whole time. A boat crew member gave her a cotton ball and some alcohol to smell.

Anton and Pete were feeling a lot better than Frankie, and they both donned wet suits and jumped into the ocean with a dozen other passengers to swim with the sea lions. Frankie just couldn't get past the smell and the thought of getting into that yucky water. The sea lions came within 10 feet of Anton, it was a National Geographic moment. They got to swim for about 15 minutes.

Back on the boat, Anton got changed, the sun came out, and they handed out chips and pop. The national soft drink is Inca Cola, rather like cream soda. We chatted with another Canadian couple from Edmonton, and a brazilian guy who lived in Curitiba, the city in Brazil near where Anton was born.

The same taxi driver was waiting to take us back to our hotel. Our luggage had already been moved to our new room, a suite on the top floor. This is the first time we've ever stayed in a suite in any hotel. It's twice as big as a normal room, with a sitting area, kitchenette, and a jacuzzi tub. This is the only hotel room we've had in Peru that gave us facecloths.

Frankie made Pete and Anton both take showers since they both smelled like sea lions. Then the 3 of us went to find a late lunch/early supper meal. We found an alley with restaurants on both sides, everyone trying to get you into their restaurant. Anton chose the least aggressive person. It was a pretty typical Peruvian meal. Lomo saltado, beef sirloin strips with onions and peppers on top of fries, and rice. With free pisco sour, the national alcoholic drink of Peru.

After supper the 3 of us walked back through the park and Pete tried some of the street vendor food. We took videos of the crazy traffic that figures itself out. We haven't seen one traffic accident yet. It's a system that makes the pedestrian look for a chance to cross and make a run for it, rather than stopping traffic.

Back at the hotel we waited for Pabel to come pick up Pete, and then we had the evening to ourselves in our suite. We have also hired Pabel to take us to the airport tomorrow morning.

This is the end of the Peru blog. Tomorrow we will be catching a flight home with a stopover in Costa Rica. Home around 10 pm.

Sent from my BlackBerry.