Nazca

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Not much to see here in Nazca except for, of course, the famous Nazca lines. About a few hours bus ride away from our last stop in Ica, Nazca falls on a kind of flat plateau between quite low lying mountains and hills.

There´s one large airport with loads of light aircraft purely to take tourists up into the air - the only way to see the lines. Sitting only five to plane the views are great (if you can put up with the plane constantly having to bank so you can see the lines!) - it really is amazing the number of lines going in all directions, believed to be marking stars, the sun and underground water courses. Its pretty much a giant, and ancient, map. The most interesting lines to see are those in the shapes of animals.

In the evening we visited the Maria Reich Institute, Reich being the woman who "discovered" and excavated the lines. Here we met her understudy, a batty old woman who was supposed to be telling us more about the lines, but struggled to stay on task preferring to rant about the lack of publicity her deceased mentor recieved and the lack of funding the (one woman) Institute gets ... still an interesting experience that leaves more questions than answers about the origins and uses of the lines.

A little dissapointed to leave the hot desert behind, the weather here is still good though - I have yet to see rain here in Peru! Had an excellent Chinese meal in Nazca city, making a very welcome change from the usual Lomo Saltado.

From here a much longer (and colder) bus journey up in altitude to Arequipa in the very South.

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Photos

The monkey
You can just about make it out I think!

Me
Another dopey picture ...