basically all of the grapes that are able to grow in the arid climate of this part of peru are only really usable in sweet wine of pisco production. went on the tour with 2 aussie girls called rosie and losie (something like that anyway, remember this was a wine drinking tour). the first place we went to had a very imformative guide who walked us round the bodega

following the production process from start to finish and then going for a small tasting of all of the products; wine, pisco, juices, honey, jam and much more that they produced.

the second bodega had a different approach and had about 6 different guides all of who were legless, stinking and completely dishevelled. rather than try to explain anything they prefered to get dressed up in any of the old hats, skins ponchos etc that they had laying round in the ´museum´ and pose with the girls holding various agricultural tools and ancient weapons for photos. whilst this was going it was practically a free for all on the wines, pretty much all port style, and pisco, pretty much pisco style.

this is the looker of the group giving it some blue steel.

the next day i was unable to leave the hostel as a journey lasting more than 10 minutes could have had the most unsanitary consequences, plus i had to bear in mind how long it had taken to get my clothes cleaned i was loathe to risk soiling them again. i can´t be sure it was the tour that did it, could have been the pink chicken i ate the day before or the guinea pig i had for dinner, but whatever it was it left me in a state of disrepair for almost a week. more of which later.

out of space hey, we´ll see about that snr wordpress. buy new space you say? get out! i say.

enough.

i´m still majorly behind, the blog seems to think that i´m in lima which is no true in the slightest. who´s to blame you ask, let the one who has no planks in his eye cast the 1st lot i say, aaahhh, aaahhh, consider the lily, aahhh, aaahhh. (trademark:tmwrnj)

cool, so after lima i decided that maybe it would be a good idea to do some archeaology stuff that my dad wouldn´t moan about so took a full day boat trip to the ballestas islands which is not only a wildlife sanctuary but also has views of the mystical trident;

neverclaiming to be an exact science, archeaologists have excelled themselves with this one dating it to the pre-thatcher era and not really wanting to push the boat out any further. the words ´theory´ and ´hypothesis´ feature quite heavily in offical texts; ever the moderate, i side with erich von daniken that it is undoubtedly a pointer for spaceships to lead them to their landingstrips at nasca. i recently re-read the gold of the gods and found it full of sound theories, well referenced with relevant evidence and eveything a young man could need to get a start in the field of archeaology. if you have no idea what i´m on about get one of his books from oxfam for 50p and prepere to be educated.

onwards from there and to the islands themselves, the ballestas are perus answer to chiles galapagos only on a much closer set of islands which means the trip costs less than a tenner instead of 1000s of pounds. the animals here have the same kind of deal; seclusion from interfering species, unique habitat and no seasons so no migration so no interbreeding so speeded up darwinism. what they also have is lots and lots of guano, in fact the islands are so rich in the stuff that every 6 years 25 people come and stay on the islands for 2 months with the unenviable task of scraping it off, with sticks, into buckets, for fertilizer.

now all the time that you are looking at the pictures of the lovely penguins, sealions;

and stuff imagine the smellovision with the most pungent, acrid piles of bird shit, 5 years festering in the beating sun, right under your nostrils. i guess this is what all natural places smell like but it never occurred to me that attenborough might be gipping at the presumably unaromatic carcass that the hyemas are chowing down on, in fact considering how much feebs our dog is capable of stinking i´m shocked that it has never crossed my mind how much a herd of wildebeest could honk.

next up the cathedral rock formation;

which is kind of pnarh, until the 35 million year process that has created this natural wonder gets you thinking, 35 million hmm, long time eh?, and the next thing you know there´s a group of 25 people standing transfixed by it and the bus is beeping and no one has blinked or spoken for half an hour. 

also rans were, flamingoes (about 2k away), dolphins (right next to the boat but damned hard to photo, i got a splash which could just as well be nessie), seaguls (eating a baby cormorant while mum and dad watched), pelicans (about 30 of them running round like kids after tiny scraps of fish) and pacific turns (overtaking the speedboat going at full whack)