Nazca and the mystery of the lines

After getting a nightmare overnight bus from Arequipa to Nazca (I had Mr Recliner in front of me, who moved his chair the whole way back leaving me pinnned to the seat for the 10 hour journey) we arrived in Nazca at 5am with no accomodation. We were supposed to be picked up by a travel agent, but since the bus was an hour early he wasn´t there. Great. You tend to stand out being white and with back packs on, and like flies on shite the touts descend on you in second. After fighting them off basically telling them to f@#k off we got our bearings and found a place to stay that we could check into straight away, our heads hit the pillow and we fell asleep.

The only reason to visit Nazca is for the Nazca lines (Nazca is a tiny desert town with nothing in it apart from dust) and they are amazing, a collection of huge geolypths etched into the Pampa desert in the shapes of many creatures and geometric shapes. We booked onto a flight to see them and headed to the airport at 1pm. We got shown a video explaining many of the theories regarding the lines with my favourite being Aliens building these as runways for spaceships and as maps of the stars - the famous line of what looks like an alien / astronaut also helps this theory. But the general consensus is that the lines were actually for worshipping the gods in times of drought in the desert. I of course prefer the E.T. theory. But like all things in Peru, nobody really knows the how´s or why´s. The only thing known is that they date fomr 900BC to 600BC, they are spread over 500sq km of arid, rock strewn desert forming a striking network of over 800 lines, 300 figures and 70 animal and plant drawings.

On our 30 flight in a 5 seater cessna (don´t eat breakfast before boarding as it´s bumpy) we saw the whale, the astronaut, the dog, the 90m monkey (very cool), the condor and it´s 130m wingspan, the spider (very very cool), the tree, the hands, the flower, the rose and finally the money shot - the humming bird. It was a great experience to see these things and you can only wonder, firstly how they were created with so much precision and then I guess why. Totally amazing and highly recommended.

We spent 2 days and 2 nights in Nazca, nothing else to report about the place. On Sat we got a bus back to Lima, then hopped in a taxi to the airport (again a scary experience - why the taxi drivers insist on driving downt he darkest and dodgiest alleys in Lima when going to the airport is beyond me) and caught our flight to Buenos Aires.

The 2 weeks we spent in Peru were fabulous, we saw so many wonderful things and would recommend it to anyone.