The Nazca Lines

---

Day 304 - Wednesday 30 July

Russ had told me to expect to be dropped of at the bus station and have tonnes of people try and sell me a room. I should therefore be able to pick up a cheap one. However my bus company dropped me off at their offices on the outskirts of town and no one was there to greet me. Instead I had to set about walking into town. En route someone did stop and offer me a room at a reasonable rate. However the flyer they gave me turned out not to be their hotel. Still its a very nice room at a good price.

Thats when the hard sell came, I was expecting it but they weren't half agressive and oh what a surprise my room was being made up so I had to sit for half an hour and endure it. They were trying to sell me a flight over the Nazca lines for $130 US. Thats about double what Russ paid about three weeks ago. After forever declining they went as low as $90 before giving up.

When I finally had my room I went to try and get my laundry done. The hotel wanted 8 soles a kilo, thats nearly 2 quid a kilo so I told them no but I couldn't find anywhere in town that does laundry. I was going to leave it but eventually settled on 8 soles for 3kg at the hotel. I've only been here a couple of hours and the place is already doing my head in, everybodies trying to rip me off.

So I went to explore the town. Theres not much to it and I know its supposed to be set 50 years ago but it looks nothing like the Nazca in the Indiana Jones film. I'll be glad to move on.

Rather than use the hotel or a travel agent the cheapest way to fly over the lines will be to go down the airport and deal with the flight companies direct. So I took a taxi down to the airport. I cant believe it, I know its high season but they're all booked up for the rest of the day. The soonest I can do it is tomorrow morning and the price has also gone up $15 in recent weeks. Not wanting to miss it out as I may never be back, I had no choice but to agree.

As i'm not impressed with the town, I stayed in and spent the evening watching tv.

Day 305 - Thursday 31 July

My flights this morning so I was up early to make my way to the airport. Unfortunatley its a cloudy day today so no flights were taking off. Great I'd wanted to move on by lunchtime. Finally the cloud cleared and 2 hours later at 11 am we were off. My plane itself is only a small 6 person plane and looks like its a model plane but I guess they fly several times a day so it must be safe.

The flight itself was about half an hour long and although it was probably worth doing and you can see them all really clearly, I was expecting the lines to be bigger. I know were in the air but were only flying 100m above the ground. And not everyone in Nazca is a rip off merchant, some bloke kindly told me to jump in the back of his truck and gave me a free lift back into town.

I was late for checkout but they didn't seem to mind so after checking out of my hotel I took a bus to Ica. A quick taxi ride later and I was in Huacachina, an oasis in the middle of the dessert with a few hotels and resturants built around it. It really is quite beautiful and because were in the desert its lovely and warm.

Apart from sandboarding the dunes and sitting in the sun by the oasis theres not really much else to do especially when the sun went down. I used the internet and had an early night

---