Hello Folks! The last day in Peruvian capital went almost uneventful, except when as a good deed I gave a rose to a young girl with bracers and then I had to hide in panic behind a bench with Mort on it. That's what you get for a being nice. It was her fault anyway, I just wanted to make her happy... o:)  As our farewell to Lima we went to movies, Zohan (in English with Spanish subs and Chinese DVD quality). With a ticket for one quid and coke with popcorn for 40 pence, it was the cheapest movies i went to since my fifteen. Great fun

The next day was in the sign of our transit to Pisco, a small fishing town on the shores of the Pacific. The bus ride on the Pan American Highway went well, in compliance with the motto on driver's cap "Property of Jesus", and by afternoon we were standing on a dusty square of Pisco. We explored the town (in half hour), in the evening we played few games of pool (on the house) and then went to our beds to have some sleep for tomorrow's trip to the Islands of Ballestas, passing the famous pictogram Candelabro. Some guides call these islands Peruvian Galapagos so we thought it won't be as tragic as our Vietnamese safari. And indeed it wasn't. The weather wasn't the best you could wish for, cloudy and a bit misty, but the inhabitants of the islands were a great surprise. We saw sea lions, penguins, pelicans, cormorants and many of  other feathered species. Mort's top of the pops won a bird with a delicious name, Peruvian Boobies. No need to explain ;)
Three little islands are inhabited by over ten thousand birds. With the wast resources of fish and the waters around being declared a national reserve, the birds had got nothing else to worry than where to drop their digested food. And that is what characterise the Islands, there isn't a place that is free from bird's droppings, giving the islands an image of a big heap of shit. But what might be a bit shitty experience for us is a blessing for Peruvians. This thick matter is being harvested every three to five years and exported to US (yeah, eat shit, US) where it's paid it's weight in gold, serving as an excellent fertiliser. So not only this makes some more money for a national reserve, but it gave us (remember, we are enemies of the state after all) a very good laugh. Peru is exporting shit to USA :) Or as you can say, there's shit in Peru :))
When we arrived back to Pisco's pier, our bellies were already rumbling (early getting up = no breakfast) and we headed to the nearest restaurant. I guess that this entry will cost us about 98% of our readers but to hell with that. Our mums will prevail and the feast was ludicrously awesome. See for yourselves. As a starter we had a dozen Shells of St. Jacob (me on Parmesan and Jan on the summer salad) and as a main course a flatfish on garlic sauce and grilled octopus were served. All flushed down with delicious Peruvian wine and a nice cup of coffee for a dessert. All together for 12 pounds!! Yummy. You've got to admit that after such a great achievement we couldn't blindly rush to our traveler's duties and  so we headed to the warm sand of a nearby beach to 'think things over'.
Next thing on the list was a 10km hike through the unforgiving desert that led us to a museum with nothing in it. Seriously. After an hour and half of walking through empty, baking hot desert, we arrived to a small house with two glass show-cases, one fish tank with no water in it, three photos of a penguin (the same penguin three times) and one uni-sex toilet. After two minutes of exhausting tour we found ourselves out in the heat of the desert again and because there was only one taxi going back to town at 10am we had to leg it back again. To kill the time and the numbness of the country around us we started whistling all the classic music we knew from our piano lessons, followed by pop music (long live Vypsana Fixa) and at the end we were just shouting and howling against the wind. When we were about half way through we saw a road. At the beginning we thought it's a mirage, but when our feet touched the slightly runny tarmac, our hearts filled with hope that we might see the civilisation again. After a little while we stopped a bus and so completely dried and fried we arrived on our hotel.

In the morning we will be departing into the mountains (a town called Ayacucho). Our shoes have been tested and allegedly you can't prepare for the altitude sickness. Well, we shall see. Take it easy and keep checking, you'll read about us soon again! ;)

- translated by Mort.