The islands built on bird droppings and mystery

The Ballestas Islands are sometimes nicknamed the poor man's Galápagos for its dense wildlife, this cluster of islands has archaeological remains dating back over 6,000 years and was once central to a booming nineteenth century guano industry, the accumulated bird droppings exported worldwide as fertiliser, piling up several metres deep in places and generating real wealth for the region.

Getting there by sea also means passing something stranger. The Candelabro de Paracas is a mysterious geoglyph, roughly 150 metres tall, etched into a nearby desert hillside and visible only from the water. It dates back at least two thousand years, and nobody has fully settled what it was for, a striking, oversized mystery on the way to an island famous mainly for its birds.

I painted the islands in watercolour and ink, that rocky coastline thick with wildlife. There's a poster with a letter home and a postcard if you'd like one.

Shop the poster here: The Ballestas Islands, Peru · Travel Poster