Mar 2006

So after arriving in Nasca today I tried my darndest to use the phone and eventually got through to the Killester Kenny’s. woohoo! Then the four of us all went to this Steak Restaurant (yay ) for what can only be described as Carne Carnage (for those of you who know your Spanish)! A tonne of meat was paraded to the table – all kinds of pig, chicken’s throats, blood sausage – and other gross stuff! I was sat at the separate veggie’s table! He He! We drank lots and headed off to bed.

After a night of possibly the worst sleep ever – desert temperatures, no windows in the room, no breeze, Jim fell asleep instantly so was no fun either – I was not in the best mood at the 7.15 wake up call. Then I was still in the shower when the lads knocked on the door and said “Hey the car is here”. Oops.. :/

We bundled into the ‘Hostel Owners’ car (2 people in the front seat) and trundled off down the road to the air.. Em airfield? Then we hopped into the tiny airplane, met our pilot and off we went. The lil plane was bombing along and nearly instantly we could see the first of the very impressive Inca drawn Nasca Lines – The Whale.
The pilot was quite good, he flew over each drawing lurching first to the right so the people on one side could see the lines well, then to the left – although the g force was pushing our heads into our necks somewhat. After a few of these goes I thought I was going to puke everywhere.

The lines themselves are pretty cool; they’re very big and look quite professional (Apart from the astronaut one, which looks a bit like Squidward - I reckon some kids added their own one).
We didn’t get to watch the rest of the badly dubbed video about them so I’m still wondering what they’re about.

Then after a yummy breakfast me and Jim wandered around a bit, checked our mail and decided to go with Priska & Manuel in a taxi to the Inca Cemetery of Chauchilla. We all got out of the car including the Taxi driver and the four of us paid the guy in charge. Then I went to the toilet and when I came back to the group I realized I didn’t have my camera with me. I went back to the taxi to check and then checked the toilet but it was nowhere to be seen. It literally disappeared into thin air. The camera was attached to my wrist and I reckon when the little b*llix in ‘reception’ gave me the ticket into one of my hands, he was secreting my camera into his own! I was so disappointed. All of our Huacachina sand boarding pics were on it and that camera cost me a fortune. We gave up, (I knew the little b*llix must have taken it and I wished I had a remote control alarm installed on my camera beforehand) and wandered around the cemetery. The graves were quite cool, some of the bones & original hair of the Inca’s buried there were intact and the figures had been arranged into sitting positions. Some of the bones were from children and were very tiny. It was interesting to see the original hair and textiles though – nearly 2000 years old. They were well preserved out there in the barren landscape as it rarely rains there.

Then a little wounded from the camera incident, we all got back into the taxi and our very nice taxi man took us to the Cantello Aquaducts. There were lots of mosquitoes though and James and myself took a few hits!

Then the taxi driver brought us to see what was left of a very old small Inca town built into the side of a hill. It was very impressive, the stonework was amazing. No mortar or mud was used in the building of the town foundations, and it has survived earthquakes for 1500 years.

Then we’d had enough, and I needed a drink after the camera incident, so we went back to the meat-eating place. I had salad for a change and we had a few beers before heading to the bus station for our overnight journey to Arequipa. The bus itself was huge, but the lights were off and we all basically had to just go asleep. It wasn’t the comfiest but it wasn’t too bad. A long day.