The bus ride was supremely boring, and was not at all assuaged by their choice of in-flight movies: Broken Arrow, Cheaper by the Dozen, Sorority Boys and Jewel of the Nile, all dubbed in spanish, with No Subtitles. As we rolled by sand dune after sand dune, I definitely had a mild 'why am I here' existential moment... But I must say that compared to the sardine-like chicken buses in Guatemala, Peruvian buses were a lot more comfortable-- with assigned seating (only 1 person per seat!) and even movies.
That night, we celebrated JM's birthday with Pisco sours (pisco is a peruvian grape brandy) and our first taste of Lomo Saltado (a 'tipycal' dish: strips of beef fried with onions and french fries-- tasted pretty good, and actually a little asian...). Back in the hotel, we went to bed early, in preparation for our early morning tour of the Nazca Lines.
Unfortunately, sometime ard 4am, we were vaguely awakened by mosquitoes, roosters, noises from a fiesta, and by people stomping around outside our room. Bert told us the next morning that he was convinced that the people outside were preparing to storm our room to kidnap us and our valuables... Um. Perhaps those nefarious characters were aware that we had 2 highly trained military personnel in the room (B & JM); Suffice to say that the noises eventually died down (hopefully someone managed to strangle the rooster) and we drifted back to sleep.
Anyways. The highlight of our Nasca adventure was the famous Nazca Lines! These are massive geoglyphs (drawings on the ground) found in the gravel-desert near the town of Nasca. While it is now widely accepted that the lines were created by the Nasca culture sometime ard 200BC and AD700, there was a theory that the lines were made by aliens!?! You can read about one attempt to disprove the alien theory-- by recreating one of the Nasca figures in a field in Kentucky-- here. I also like the Nasca info pages by BBC and the Discovery Channel.
The best way to see the lines is by plane. For US$40pax, you can hire a teeny weeny (non-polka dotted) plane to fly u over the lines. These planes seat 4-6 people total, and the pilots are extremely anxious that u get a good view of the lines-- ours obligingly tilted the plane nearly 90degrees to the right and left, to ensure that we don't miss out on the marvels of the whale, dog, monkey etc etc... My stomach was definately regretting the one cookie I had for breakfast.
After the over-flight, we arranged for a tour of the Chauchilla cemetery. The Nascans mummified their dead, and buried them in small underground tombs with objects that they'll need in the afterlife-- gold, pottery, some textiles, tools.... The chauchilla cemetery is estimated to contain about 5000 tombs!! The mummies are quite, quite macabre. There were even babies and children...
The gut-churning flight, in addition to the mummies, left us in no mood for lunch. We basically spent the rest of the day hanging out in the hotel lobby, playing cards, then caught a night bus to Arequipa.
1 comment:
That's cool - you saw the Nazca lines after all! That's crazy about the stowaway in the taxi. That's funny that all those things work you up in the middle of the night - the mosquitos and the party and everything.
Post a Comment