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Published: March 29th 2011
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We left the beautiful hotel at Huacachina the next morning and set off for Nazca. On the way Max kept us well informed about the region and some fascinating snippets about Peruvian life. We are still in the Ica department which is mostly a desert region growing grapes for wine and Pisco plus other crops.
If you are interested the recipe for the famous Peruvian cocktail Pisco Sour is: Pisco, angustura bitters, egg whites and sugar. Tasted lovely.
We found out about a week long festival that takes place at harvest time in the region. There´s a carnival and lots of singing and dancing and making merry. One local custom involves bringing a huge cut tree to the town, decorating it with presents, sweets and chocolates then couples in funny costumes with face paints and the like dance around the tree taking it in turns to hack it down with an axe! The person who finally makes the cut that fells the tree is tasked with bringing the tree into town the next year. This is all done with lots of pisco drinking!
As we continued on our way the scenery was still very much desert like with
dunes stretching for miles and miles. Occasionally we see tiny little square shacks set out in grids. These are free plots of land that will eventually be populated and make a new village or town.
We stopped to look at another couple of crops - one asparagus and the other cactus. But it isn´t the cactus that is harvested but instead the cocheneal beatles that live on the cactus plants!
We also saw a police car stopped by the side of the road and MAx told us how their boss sends them off to collect penalty fines for cars they stop without the correct paperwork. The money collected is split, half to the boss and the rest between the police and their local colleagues. Easy money for the boss and extra income to supplement the police wages!! So you have to be nice when you are stopped otherwise the penalty rises in proportion to the amount of arguing you do!!
So eventually we stop at the Nazca lines viewing tower and see just two of the strange shapes that are marked out on the dusty hard ground. One a tree and the other hands. It´s not a
very good view from here and as we see little planes flying overhead we pursuade MAx to take us to the airport at Nazca to see if we can book on one of these flights to get a better view of the Nazca lines. After much form filling, weighing us! and handing over of lots of $$ we board a tiny 6 seater plane and take off into the blue sky. This was my first flight in such a tiny plane so was very exciting if somewhat stomach lurching! We got some great views of the fascinating lines and shapes. There are so many theories about how and why these were formed from being astronomical charts to making sure there would be water, by making offerings to being alien landing sites lol. Whatever they are they only were discovered in the 1930s and it's not surprising really as they really can only be seen properly from the air. So glad I forked out the extra to do this flight.
We eventually arrive at our hotel at Nazca town and find joy, of joys there is a swimming pool so all hop in quick sharp for a cooling dip. We
get chatting to the Dragoman guys who are also camping at our hotel. Boy did it remind me why I will NEVER do Dragoman again. Enough said lol
Another amazing day in Peru !
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