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The birds keep up a squawking cacophony. Red-legged cormorants fly overhead, bombarding our boat fleetingly with white bird droppings.

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We yelp and dodge while trying to maintain our balance in choppy waters. The woman in front of me fails to duck in time. Her floral blouse suffers a sizeable splatter.

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"Buena suerte!" Our guide says with an exuberant beam, using the Spanish phrase for good luck. "In our culture, getting hit like that is a blessing." It is a belief shared by some cultures, I realise, including the Chinese.

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We are on a three-hour boat tour of the Ballestas Islands, off the coast of Peru. Hundreds of thousands of birds from more than 200 species roost on the 700m-long islands, crowning the area as one of the world's largest seabird sanctuaries.

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For its abundant wildlife, the Ballestas Islands are lovingly nicknamed Poor Man's Galapagos by the locals. The boat trip to and around the Ballestas Islands costs as little as 40 soles (S$17), compared with the thousands of dollars needed for a typical cruise around the wildlife-rich Galapagos Islands of Ecuador.

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Since we are nowhere near Ecuador, paying 40 soles to play Darwinian naturalists for a morning in Peru cannot go too wrong.

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So my husband and I embark on a four-hour drive from the capital, Lima, towards the arid Paracas reserve, from which we board an expedition vessel to cruise the frigid, anchovy-rich waters lining coastal Peru.

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WILDLIFE SPECTACLE 

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The journey begins on an enigmatic note. Near the coast, we pass a geoglyph, a large and mysterious carving etched into the sandy hillside. 

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