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Published: October 9th 2005
Hello from Nazca!
We arrived october 5th after a long bus ride from lima. Ok not that long, but they played one spanish-dubed action movie after another the whole way and that made it seem pretty long. Interesting scenery though: one side desert, one side ocean, with the occasional chicken farm.
We stayed at the Yamaya hotel (calle Callao), which is new and not in the lonely planet. It was pretty good too until last night when a night club started up next door. (ask mike about it sometime...)
It seems like the biggest industry here is selling plane rides over the nazca lines to tourists. We (mainly mike) had to endure some pretty hard sales pitches from someone connected to the hotel.
The town is small and pretty lively. It´s in a pretty big desert but thanks to an underground water supply and a 1500 year old irrigation system there doesn´t seem to be a shortage of water.
We´ve been hanging out here waiting for me to get better from a cold, but have managed to have a few adventures.
Last night we decided we weren´t going to waste any more money on gringo
food and went to a cheaper place near the town square. good food and lots of it. As we were almost ready to go, a peruvian woman with a clip board sat down at the table beside us and i figured we were in for another speech about airplanes and the nazca lines. She asked us where we were from and if we spoke english, then handed us a piece of paper and asked us to translate it for her. Written on the top of the paper were the words: Celine Dion My Heart Will Go On.
yes that´s right, it was the lyrics to the titanic song in english. Turns out she directs a choir and they´re going to sing this song, but she wants to know what it´s about. We spent a pretty amusing half hour with our spanish engish dictionary trying to explain the meaning of lines like ¨love touches us one time¨ and trying to illuminate the distinction between one´s physical and emotional heart.
ok, some food related highlights of peru: cactus fruit called ¨tuna¨which is bright red and tastes like pomegranates and watermelon. Chocolate cake is sold by the slice EVERYWHERE (and it´s
Nazca roofs
The view from our hotel window.good). Hot chocolate is really good here and often has various exciting spices in it. Also, avocados, but that´s been my lunch for the last few days so i´m tired of them now.
and finally the nazca lines. We took a bus out to an observation platform (el mirador) today and had a look. They´re pretty neat. You can´t see very many from the tower, but you can see a frog thing, a very nice tree and a lizard (whose tail has been run over by the highway). we got a ride back to town in a taxi with a hungarian couple and the four of us decided to go see the irrigation system while we had a full taxi. That was pretty neat too although we decided not to pay the rather high entrance fee to actually go down into the wells. The taxi ride was an adventure in itself, as we saw lots of little farms and some inca ruins.
We leave tonight for Cusco and spanish lessons.
hasta luego,
Kathleen
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Kim
non-member comment
well isn't that appropriate
Kathleen holding onto bimbo bread... somehow, I think that just sums it all up! love you!