Day 4 Nazca to Arequipa

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It was a busy day today. Met with our local tour guide Suzy in the morning and drove out to an ancient burial site. It was just outside Nazca in a kind of desert area, it was so hot! Was very interesting, remains of the local people kept in the original stone houses about a meter deep. Some remains were found with the hair in tact. There were also a few baby and young children remains found.

We then got the bus to the local airport where you can get a flight over the Nazca lines. There was just 6 in a plane including the pilot (who was just 21!), and I think everyone was a little nervous. There is nothing that can prepare you for the views over the lines, there are so many and cover a huge area. We were in the plane for about 45 minutes where you could get a birds eye view of the lines. How these people made them so perfect, so straight in some cases and so long ago... I don't know. They couldn’t even see them properly the way we did, it was amazing. The plane journey was a bit hairy and Karen felt a little unwell near the end, but thank God we didn’t see what she had for breakfast! I think she was happy to be on the ground again. No one from our group got sick, even after extreme Nazca line flying.

After that we went to a local pottery studio that makes ceramics in the exact same way they did up to 500 years ago. The master pottery guy was one of the funniest people you could meet. He had everyone laughing. He didn’t speak English but I think he could speak every other language there is!

Went for lunch in Nazca and then walked back to the hotel which we really enjoyed, although we thought we were going to get ambushed by a group of roaming dogs!

Went out for dinner that night and watched some local dancing. We then went to the planetarium with the group, it was ok, small building out the back with a small telescope in the garden. Was interesting though to learn the different theories about the Nazca lines. Karl and Paul (another Paul) skipped the planetarium and went straight to a bar. While they were sitting down having a beer and a chat a transvestite came into the bar and proceeded to speak to them in Spanish. After a couple a minutes he/she pulled a giant black dildo out of his/her jacket, hit Paul over the head and left!! Classic! We followed them up to the bar and we all got fairly hammered, while we were trying to decide if it was a gay bar or not. Manny said it wasn’t but some of us were not so convinced. The bar opened straight onto the street and a local kid, who was only about 3/4 years old, walked by with his mother and shouted "Gringos" at us :-) That gave us all a great laugh!

Anyway, got the night bus to Arequipa at about 12:30am. The bus wasn’t bad. It had leather seats and a bathroom downstairs. So it’s goodbye Nazca and the tranny with the dildo!

-- By Paul

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Photos

On the plane
2 behind + 2 in front = a little cramped

Three amigos
A typical burial site just outside Nazca

This is one giant step for............
The spaceman, one of many Nazca lines

Humming Bird
Is quite hard to make out. It is huge as well

Monkey Business
Another of the Nazca Lines

First Class Peruvian Transport
Combined all our bags formed a wall of steel!!!

At the (Gay) Bar in Nazca
Sam, Steve and our Crazy Cuban Guide enjoying drinks in a bar in Nazca!!