Nazca/Ica

Hello all!

Two weekends ago I went on a great little trip to Nazca and Ica! They are to the South of Lima and in a more desert climate. We started by taking a bus down to Nazca, about 6 hours away. We woke up early to see the Nazca lines. We rode in this little tiny airplane that flew over some of the famous ones. It was so neat! My favorite was the Condor. No one is exactly sure who made the Nazca lines (some think aliens, others think the Nazca people) or how, which adds a little bit to the experience. The flight was great, but we circled around the lines a lot and by the end I was a little nauseous! Everything worked out though and it was good to check that off of my "To-Do in Peru" list!

We then took a bus to the city of Ica, about halfway between Nazca and Lima. The bus played Planet Earth in Spanish for about 5 minutes, which got me super excited. It was a big let-down, though, because we ended up watching The Transporter, followed by The Transporter 2. I slept through those. When we got to Ica, we took a taxi to this little place called Huacachina, an oasis in the middle of the desert. We found this really cheap, hippyish hostel with lots of Australian backpackers. After lounging around the pool for a while, we went to the middle of the desert on a dune buggy to go sandboarding! Sandboarding is like snowboarding, but on huge sand dunes! Actually, everyone in our group (except this one crazy good German) went on our stomachs sledding-style. It was sooo fun! We went to some really high and steep dunes, but it was such a blast flying down. The only downside was our dune buggy getting a flat tire twice in the middle of the dunes. Both times, we had to wait for another dune buggy to bring us another tire. I figured if there is anywhere where I would like to get a flat tire, though, it’s in the middle of the Peruvian desert!

Ica is where they make all of the wine and pisco (a Peruvian liquor made from grapes). We found this taxi driver who knows the owner of one of the places and who ended up giving us a tour for a really cheap price. I learned how they make the wine, which is way more complicated than I thought. They have to wait a certain amount of time depending on the wine and the grapes and everything. We also learned about how they make the pisco, which is even more complicated, involving different densities of the liquid and a spiral and all sorts of confusing sorting systems. It was really interesting to learn, but I would be lying to say the tasting at the end wasn’t my favorite part ;)

After that, we laid around on the hammocks at our hostel for a while before jumping on a bus back to Lima. It was a great weekend getaway to Nazca and Ica!

(I still can't upload photos-I'll add them when I figure it out!)

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