Swimming with Sea Lions

We pulled into Callao about seven o’clock in the morning today. 

I was struck by all the colorful fishing trawlers in the harbor, all moored just outside the breakwater.

 Callao is the port district of Lima. It was no doubt once a separate city located some distance from the historic center of the capital, but now it is just part of the sprawl of the Lima metropolitan area. I became aware of this town when I was teaching students about the Gold Rush. Those argonauts that sailed around Cape Horn had to stop a several times along the way for fresh food and water, and Callao was usually one of those stops. In By the Great Horn Spoon!, a novel about the Gold Rush I read with my students every year, Jack and Praiseworthy accidentally pick up several cats when they stop here.

John and I, a few years ago, had a long stopover in Lima on our way back to California. We arranged a private city tour with a young university student, and she showed us a remarkable amount of the city in only a few hours. So when I was planning our shore excursion for this port, I noticed that all the city tours simply went to the same places we had been before. And then I noticed that that there was one which offered us the opportunity to swim with sea lions. It appealed. John had a few reservations when he heard about it but was willing to give it a try.

We took a shuttle bus from the ship to the Plaza de Armas in the La Punta district of Callao. I will try to snap some pictures of this area tomorrow – since cancelling Santa Marta we are now here two days – as it is an fairly affluent and attractive area. From there, we took an Uber to the restaurant where we were meeting our tour. We were greeted by Rogelio, our tour leader, who found a seat for John while we waited for everyone to show up. A little while later we were walking toward the sea wall where we were to catch a shuttle out to our boat. It was here that the only mishap of the day occurred when John tripped on some uneven pavement and skinned both knees.

Once safely in the boat, things went more smoothly. We shot about a mile across the harbor to the Palomino Islands. This is a small archipelago easily seen from the shore. The islands have no natural source of fresh water, and there is not a single plant growing on any of them. The largest of the islands is the property of the navy, and there are some buildings there used occasionally for training purposes. Another island had the remains of a maximum-security prison. Rogelio assured us that it had only been used for the worst criminals: “narcotic traffickers and politicians.” Continuing beyond these islands we came to the rest of the archipelago, now a national marine sanctuary. The islands had been a rich source of guano in the nineteenth century, and before the advent of artificial fertilizers guano had been highly prized in Europe. There were still stone walkways left there from the time when Chinese immigrants had scooped the bird droppings into barrels to be shipped to England.

There were penguins everywhere. 

We continued on to one of the farthest of the islands, our final destination, the home of a large colony of sea lions.

There was a small fishing boat near us. I imagine that the fisherman was not as enchanted by these voracious fish eaters as we tourists were.

John mulled over the idea of getting in the water here but decided that he was happier staying on the boat.

I, on the other hand, happily put on a wet suit and jumped in.

I was not the only white-haired person in the water, but we’re reasonably sure that this one is me. But I was definitely had company, both human and animal.

It was a blast. Sea lions are extremely territorial on land, but in the water they are curious and playful. They came up close to check us out and seemed to enjoy swimming underneath us. Although we had been warned that the water was cold, it was certainly far warmer than it ever gets in Oregon. I did not mind it at all.

All too soon we had to go back to shore. John and I returned to the restaurant where the Uber driver had dropped us off and we had a wonderful meal of ceviche, shrimp and rice, and fresh-squeezed lemonade.