Blogs from Nazca Lines, Nazca, Ica, Peru, South America - page 3

We have crossed the international dateline arriving an hour before we left. Our first destination in South America is Peru, famous for the Incas, lamas, creating the Pisco Sour and of course being the birth place of Paddington Bear. There is a well trodden backpacker trail which leads straight to Nazca. Nazca, a town in the middle of the desert and has became famous because of the Nazca lines. Discovered in the 1920s by pilots who described seeing shapes including, a monkey, flower, killer whale and humming bird they are a huge draw for tourists. To see the lines in their full glory you have to take to the air. Unfortunately the past year has seen three fatal aircrashes and a hijacking by Columbian drug barons. This has resulted in a crackdown on businesses offering flights ... read more

Buenos dias, So we went to be early in order to be up in time for the 4am bus to Nasca. We set both of our alarms to make sure that we would wake up in time and not miss the bus. Peter rolled over and checked his watch during the night to find out that it was 422am and they had indeed missed the bus. Frantically, Val and Peter scrambled out of bed and talked to the hostel staff as well as the employee who had booked the bus tickets and the overflight of the Nasca lines. We would have to catch the next bus out to Nasca, arriving at 1pm and she would try to see if our flight could be rescheduled for later in the day after our new arrival time. We managed ... read more

Nazca and its mysterious lines... read more

We got a flat tyre at 3am, on a road renowned for night bus hijacks! After an hour or two we were safely back on the road, arriving at Nazca at 8ish. By 9:30 we were on our way to the airport to see the Nazca Lines. The lines were created by the Nazca people by removing sun darkened stone from the desert surface to expose the lighter soil below, some time between the 4th and 9th centuries. This network of over 800 lines, 300 geometric figures (geoglyphs) and 40 animal and plant drawings (biomorphs) is spread across 500 square kilometres of desert. It is unbelievable that the lines are still visible - not covered by sand or rock, or eroded. There are 2 reasons for this, firstly that the stones absorb heat throughout the day, ... read more

goodbye Haucachina/Hello Nazca We arrived back in Haucachina and were surprised but happy to find Heidi still there, we decided to stay for a few more days, John needed to get back to work and he got stuck into that while Heidi and I enjoyed our last few days taking advantage of the pool and the great weather. It was Heidi's birthday and she wanted to celebrate in Ica, we jumped a cab a to the big smoke, now here's the thing, Ica is a large town but it was virtually impossible to find a decent restaurant, Ica is an odd place still recovering from the earthquake in 2007, many of the streets are in a tumbledown state and many building remain vacant and appear unsafe. Unfortunately it also has a reputation of being very unsafe. ... read more