Peru 2012 Day 8

The morning started out maybe with some confusion on my part. Daniela told me they would pick me up at the hotel for today's tour at 10:00am so I figured I could walk around to the park and take some pictures of things I had seen a few times but either hadn't gotten pictures of yet or maybe I wasn't happy with the chances I had to take pictures.  This meant I left the room at about 8:20am after getting cleaned up and ready and walked down to the park and a bit beyond but not all the way to the Larcomar.  This turned out to be a really good thing because I got back to the hotel at about 9:00am and was immediately rang by the front desk to tell me the tour was there to pick me up. I had been expecting an hour later. So I gathered my stuff and headed down and got on the van.  There was a grandmother and her son already there.  We picked up a mother and daughter pair a few minutes later then it was off to Callao which appears to be a very large district in Lima with a full range of middle class on down to poverty in it based on what I saw from the bus. The reason we were going there was for the port. The first tour of the day was a boat tour out to some islands that had been formed by an earthquake. Apparently the land between the mainland and the islands fell away when it happened. Daniela was supposed to meet me at the port and also evaluate this tour as well, however something must have happened because she never showed up before they took us out. I recall she said she lived in Callao so she was not supposed to be too far away and there didn't appear to be any traffic.

They took us out to the main tour boat on two smaller boats and we had to board the one directly from the other. It was an interesting setup. I suspect the pier wasn't big enough for the boat we took the tour with. The trip starts by passing the largest island which is owned by the navy. One passenger remarked that it was odd there were no boats there if it was owned by the navy. I suspect it is a little. Maybe they are off at war?  There was another small island to pass to get around to the back side of the larger island. The guide said the majority of the islands are considered wildlife preserves including the back side of the largest island.  The water was a little rough on the way out and the haze hung over us for most of the day.  There was very little information provided by a guide. The main focus of the boat trip was to take us out to two islands far behind the main island. One island was the home of many birds and the other was the home of around 7000 (they said) sea lions. I didn't count them but I can say there were a wicked lot of them out there. As we got out there the sun did start to break out of the haze. Also when you got close to the islands all you could smell was the birds and it was bad enough even I could smell it.  They had to give some passengers cotton balls with alcohol in it so they could stand it. My lack of sense of smell does help me a bit in these regards. We stayed around the island for quite a while. The sea lions were all over the place on the islands and in the water and the howled and barked a lot and it was a strange collection of sights and sounds. They come in many colors (all grey, brown, yellowish or black) and they push each other around a lot and fight with each other and flip around in the water to dive and surface all over the place.  The noises were sometimes very unusual.  I can definitely say it was an impressive experience, even with the smell of the birds.

The reason for the stop was also so passengers could get out into the water and swim with the sea lions. I am sure it was a thrilling experience but I since I am not a great swimmer and that bothers me a lot in deep water (and it is there) I chose not to go out. In fact it was obvious that aside from the guides only one woman over 20 went out into the water. The rest of us old folks all stayed safely inside and watched. The sea lions did get really close to the swimmers and some even popped up out of the water inside their group or touched the people.  I am sure it was very cool to experience. There was a small part of me that regretted I didn't try it.  The water is about 20C  they claimed. If so that is about 68F. Their claim it was that warm was that there were jellyfish all around the area. The people who went in all got wet suits to at least help keep them warm. Supposedly the wet suits would protect them from the stings of the jellyfish. I am a bit iffy on this and that is one reason I regret less that I didn't actually go in the water.  I think they were in the water for 15-20 minutes. It was hard to say because I didn't bring my watch. It really didn't seem like a terribly long time at all.

After the sea lion island we headed in to the main island and saw some penguins that lived on another small rocky island along with some pelicans on a neighboring small rocky island.  The pelicans were also out in the harbor as we left and it was impressive to see them fly in single file formation, changing heights and directions in turn.  I haven't seen pelicans since I was in Florida as a kid so that was pretty cool. Also this was the first time I had seen penguins in the wild.  Come to think of it, this was the first time I was on a boat in the Pacific Ocean and also the first time I was on a boat south of the equator.  Reasonably cool firsts in my book.  After this stop it was around the other end of the big island and back into port.  I had not brought any sunscreen and by the end of the ride I could feel I was getting burnt. By then it was too late anyway. We returned to the port and were picked up by a bus who dropped me off at the hotel first a bit before 3:00pm.  I was hungry so I ran upstairs and found out how red I was (I am a bit but I think it will clear up in a day, I hope anyway). I was hungry so I immediately headed down to the McDonald's and had a hasty late lunch. I ordered the Cuarto del Libro con Queso.  It tasted like any other burger I've  had at McDonald's and was much better than the Bembos burger (though in visuals the Bembos looked better).  Then I walked down to the Larcomar area to get a few pictures of things I hadn't gotten in the daytime yet. The sun was out and there were some nice views to look at. I wandered as far as the bridge near El Parque del Amor (but did not cross over it) and then headed back to the hotel room.  When I got back it was a little bit before 5pm and there was a note from the front desk that Daniela had called to remind me to be ready for 6-6:30pm for the next part of my day. I remembered she mentioned a traditional dancing show but I didn't recall what else was happening and I figured it was just the dinner and dancing show and she said she was not going to that.

To my surprise she arrived a little bit after I started waiting downstairs in front of the hotel. She asked me if I received the itinerary she wrote up for me in English and I had to explain that Luis is not very good at doing things on time and completing everything. He gets distracted easily.  She apparently did a very nice job of translating the itinerary for the weekend into English for me. At this point I found out that we were going to Parque de la Reserva then I was to go to the dinner and dance show.  We arrived at the park took pictures of a couple of lit up fountains then rushed through the park to get to the big fountain. There was a show with lasers, lights and even movies being played on the fountain water. It was all set to music and lasted about 20 minutes. I am not sure if it happens every night but I suspect it does. They played different types of music from classical to traditional Peruvian to some modern stuff. I took videos of some of it and a few pictures too. Hopefully they came out well enough in the dark.  After the show was over we got to go through the park a bit and take a few more pictures of some of the nicer fountains. I took a few specifically for Daniela because her camera;s memory chip ran out.  After that we even walked under a fountain tunnel. If we stayed to the right it was not too bad for getting wet. While we were watching the big show Daniela decided she would like to try to come to the restaurant if they would let her so she asked Rodrigo, our guide, after the show and he called the restaurant.  They said yes she was able to come along which I was very happy for. From there we had to leave the park and get on the bus to the restaurant for the show.

The restaurant was called La Dama Inana and the food served was buffet style. We were able to get our salad/appetizer course before the show started. We had to get the other courses in the pauses between dances. The show consisted of a series of traditional Peruvian dances performed on an raised, oval stage in the center of the restaurant.  They started with some of the more simple dances and worked their way to the much more complex stuff. Some dances were obviously influenced by the Spanish. Some were influenced by the jungle region and some by the highlands as well I think. I really lost count of the number of dances they performed but all of them were done well. The dancers seemed to be having fun dancing them which makes it more enjoyable I think.  They even took some audience members onto the floor during some dances. An older couple from one of the South American countries actually danced quite well (I could see a flag that was not Peruvian but I couldn't tell which one it was). Since it was more traditional I appreciated this more than the Scottish show in Edinburgh a few years back (they did too many things that were meant to cater to the mostly very old people that see it).  The highlight of the night is the scissor dance which involves the dancers clanging scissors to a beat and performing very complex and acrobatic dances. The scissor dance lasted the longest of the bunch and had 6  men dancing together or taking turns. It is only performed by men.  Some of of the acrobatics they did looked very painful and much of the dancing looked like it must have taken years to learn.  After they finished the scissor dance the finale was a dance involving a lot of the god or demon costumes of the culture. There was obviously supposed to be a battle of good and evil and the various dancers came into the crowd and danced around the audience. Some of the dances were quite funny, like the fire dance where dancers were supposed to light fire to the backside of other dancers as they danced. They brought audience members up on stage for that and the chubby guy from South America was hysterical to watch actually.  All in all it was a good time and I enjoyed the food. They served us a chicha and a pisco sour again. I guess I am getting to be a pro at pisco sours.  Daniela was very happy with the scissor dance. She said it is her favorite traditional dance from her country. I could see why.  After the show was over it was back to the hotel where Daniela also got off the bus and went in search of a cab home. She lives by the port so she had a forty minute or so ride back.  Her office is in Miraflores she said, so she was used to the ride anyway.  Earlier in the evening I gave her my business card so we can exchange some pictures and hopefully keep in touch.  She is a very interesting and nice person.

I took a ton of pictures today. Enough to make up for all the lack of the week before and probably the lack of the week after.  They are located here.  I also took some videos during the day. I suspect one or two of them came out nice. I will have to figure out posting some of my videos again. I haven't done it in years.