Today we headed down to the port to go swim with sea lions. There is a colony outside of Lima on the Palomina Islands where oodles of sea lions (lobos) live. They have no natural predators up here as there are no sharks in this area. We boarded out water taxi that took us out to our boat, where is was a bunch of Peruvians and us 7 gringos. The ride out lasted about 90 minutes and, even though we all took Dramamine prior to departure, it was pretty rough once we made the turn around San Lorenzo island and were out in the open seas. We all just went to our 'happy place' and survived without vomiting...but it was touch and go there for a while. The 4 girls who decided to go in got their wet suits on, and Diego joined in the fun as well. Carly was the brave one and volunteered to jump in first. The water was a balmy 65 degrees (at best), so was a bit of a shock to the system but then they adjusted. They swam out towards the sea lions and some swam near them but none touched them. After about 20 min, they returned to the boat, exhausted, but glad they did it. We took the long way back to the port and missed seeing the penguins so as to avoid the horrid waves.
Back on dry land, we headed back to the apartment, showered and changed, and went to Plaza Salaveery for dinner at Papacho's, a typical Peruvian restaurant with great burgers! After a gelatto dessert, we headed back home, exhausted but lots of awesome memories!!
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