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Published: June 22nd 2005
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Huacachina
Home of Laziness Hello again.
After Cusco we moved on to the most famous, but relatively untouristy town of Nasca (or Nazca - Those alternate spellings, again!) We took a 14-hour overnight bus on a road that did not have one section of straight roadway. It was 14 hours of non-stop twisting and turning. We have our small daybag which on long buses I keep on the ground with the strap around my leg. It just kept sliding back and forth, back and forth for the whole drive. Needless to say, we now know why so many people fly from Cusco to Lima.
We arrived in Nasca about 8:00 am. Unfortunately, we were the only ones getting off. That meant that the dozen "jaladores" waiting for the bus all wanted to "help" us out. "Taxi, hotel, tours, flights, hostals, agua sin gas". These people just follow you like vultures. At times we get so sick of people asking stuff from us that we ask, "What hotel are you from?" (Insert response from jalador) "OK, that is one we are not going to being using now."
After finding a place to stay on our own and consulting the relatively useless local
tourist information office, we opted to do a flight over the lines. We weren´t going to at first. We had heard a lot of mixed reports on the lines. But it was only US$40 per person and we figured we probably wouldn´t be back to Nasca for a while, so we went for it that afternoon.
The plane was a small 4-seat (including pilot) Cesna. We sat in the back seat. Ana took her motion sickness pills beforehand, just in case. The flight takes about 35 minutes and you get to see about a dozen of the main figures. The Nasca pampa is littered with hundreds of designs, some of which are about 300 meters long. There are also a lot of geometeric lines that run across the pampa. I thought these were more impressive than the figures as they can be many kilometers long. Fortunately, neither one of us got sick despite the many sharp turns and bumpy ride.
We went to a planetarium show that night in Nasca. It was neat, but since neither one of us had slept much in the previous few nights, we had a hard time staying awake. They talked about the
theories of the origins of the Nasca lines. Some people believe that they are part of a giant astronomical calendar, while other nutcases believe they are alien landing strips (discrediting the work of ancient Peruvians).
The next day, we shoved on to Huacachina, a small resort town about 5km outside of the city of Ica. Huacachina apparently was a pretty happening town back in the 40´s, but now has a rundown sort of feel. The town surrounds a small oasis (pond) which is itself surrounded by sand dunes. Now the town attracts a mix of foreigners looking to relax and sandboard and locals coming to picnic on the slopes.
There is not much to do in the town, but that is part of the appeal. We stayed at a nicer hotel which had a pool and just lounged around quite a bit. We could have easily spent a week here doing nothing. But we limited ourselves to two days. We actually needed the rest. On our night in Nasca, Ryan went to sleep at 9:00 pm and slept for the next 13 hours. The very next night in Huacachina, he took a "nap" at 7:00 pm and awoke
refreshed at 8:00 am the following morning.
In Huacachina, there are two main activities to entertain oneself. The first is riding in "dune boogies", which we decided against since a) it was expensive and we had just come off the second most expensive week of the trip, b) Ryan´s ridden in "dune boogies", and c) Ana was indifferent. So we opted to spend 5 soles (about US$1.50) on a sandboard. It´s like a slow, stubborn snowboard. It´s not that difficult, though you need quite a bit of steep slope to go anywhere. The hard part is trekking back up the dune (no chairlifts). It was fun for an afternoon.
Huacachina also has a very limited choice of restaurant establishments. One of the better "looking" restaurants was the "pasta" place. We went there one evening, sat down, looked over the menu, only to be told when the waiter came to take our order that there was no more food. He assured us that we could still order drinks. We asked if there might be food later. He said that maybe in an hour and a half there might be more food. The kitchen was busy with all the orders
they'd already received (the restaurant had been open for maybe an hour so far that evening). We decided to move on. The next night we decided to give the pasta place another shot. This time we were told that there was only pizza, but were still handed a menu that only had pastas and drinks on it. No one came by for at least ten minutes while we puzzled over the non-existent menu options. Again, we decided to move on.
We are now in Lima. More about that next time.
Later,
Ryan & Ana
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