Desert: Ancient lines and big dunes

Trip Start Jun 26, 2008
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Trip End Jun 2009


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Monday, October 6, 2008

Well another 9 hours on busses and we are seriously clocking up the time. This time we could hardly believe our eyes: blankets, pillows and movies in english as well as good food!! Better than planes, who would have guessed! They even had a nice security chap come around the bus before we left with a camcorder to video each of us for 10 seconds for their "records". This is due to high amount of bus crashes in this part of the world... Good news is this driver could apply for "driving miss daisy" and we were an hour late but intact and happy.
 
We arrived in the little town of Nasca which is not much to look at however the Taylors had arranged us a super hotel with a pool and well within budget!!! We opted for the 40 minute trip which also included 3 of the Palpa lines as well as the 13 Nasca well known lines.
 
An insanely busy resturant, packed solely with locals is always a good sign. The one we found  is best described as a chicken factory with huge ovens with literally hundreds of chickens on rotisaries. We ordered one family meal which was about 10US$ which consisted of about 20 large pieces of chicken a mountain of chips and a huge salad.. Washed down with 2 large bottles (680ml) of Cristal beer. I would go back to Nasca just for that...

A trip to the Maria Reiche Planatarium for a show on theories about the lines, seriously tested our ability to stay awake after 8 pm these days, but was well worth it. We learnt some new star constellations and names ( Alanna has been practicing ever since) and got to see Jupiter and four of its moons and the moon through a very powerful telescope.
 
Next Am we were booked to take the flight, so were fetched and taken to the airport at 6am for an early flight. The planes are all small Cesssnas and the pilots are cowboys. We were up and away and the shadows in the early morning were brilliant for photos. It is surreal to fly over this flat open area of hundreds of square kms where it hardly ever rains, hence the preservation of these scratching in the earth for hundreds of years..
 
The flight was great if you like pulling serious "G" force manouvers so that people on both sides of the little 5 seater can take pictures straight down. It reminded me of flying in the Harvards for Dads 60th!! Ems loved it but many people need to use the little white paper bags supplied.. We were all fine which was good. Awesome trip and thrilled to have done it.  

That night we caught yet another 8 hour bus to Arequipa....
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