Charissa was a bit under the weather, so she opted to lounge by the pool while I went on another tour. This one had us in dune buggies again, while there weren’t much for dunes, it made the ride comfortable on the rough back roads that we took across the desert. On this tour we saw a pyramid from the Nasca people, used as a sacred place.
We also saw some aqueducts they created for drinking water and irrigation. They were quite advanced how they tapped into underground rivers that flowed during the entire dry season, so advanced scientist recently looked into using this same style system to help solve Lima’s water issues.
We were also taken to a burial ground for the Nasca people. There was an intact grave exposed to the elements and open for us to see, quite interesting to see this just sticking out of the ground along the road.
As the guide explained some details he pointed out what was around us, we were surrounded by cloth bits, broken pottery, and bones. All of the graves had been dug up, almost 300 in total. Nasca had a habit of burying gold and silver figurines with their dead, so unfortunately these graves had been raided by treasure hunter sometime in the past.
They also took us to a small dunes area to try out sandboarding. Either better boards or different sand lead this one to be much faster and thus more fun. Also the driver took us fast over a couple dunes, I realised now why some people compared the dune rides to a roller coaster. When you have a good driver, it is exactly like riding a roller coaster.
Between the long distance, and our guides poor time management, we ended up running over an hour and half late. This had us running full speed in the dark over bad roads for an hour. This also had me nervous about being late for our night bus to Arequipa, but I didn’t need to worry. We got to the bus station in time and after checking our bags found this restaurant close by to get a giant fried chicken meal. And if you know me well, this made me very happy.
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So if you are in a hurry don’t remove this stop from your list. I think you can do a quick stop just for the flight. I think its even possible to take the bus in, do a flight and take a bus onwards on the same day.
Nasca
Another short bus ride away was the town of Nasca. The town itself isn’t much of a destination, so we kept this stay a bit shorter, only a day and a half. We spent the afternoon lounging around the small pool at our hotel while the staff arranged our activities for the next day.
The main reason for our stop here are the Nasca Lines, these are ancient geoglyphs created by the Nasca people. The Nasca people were a pre-Inca, living in the region approximately 100 BC to 750 AD. The geoglyphs are essentially large lines created by removing all the stones and vegetation from an area. The lines create different geometric shapes but also form various symbols like a spider or monkey. The figures are huge, sometimes up to 1km in length. Given the shapes and straightlines over such a distance, its hard to imagine how these ancient people were able to create these so perfectly. Scientists are really sure why the Nasca people made these lines, but due to the desert climate they remain very visible to this day. We took a short, 30 minute flight over the desert to see 12 of the figures and shapes, but we could see many more, and there are more further out in the desert. We really enjoyed seeing them from the air, here are a couple pics of a spider and a hummingbird.
