Nazca Lines to Arequipa May 17

May 17

Breakfast at the hotel.  It is cool, but a jacket will do. Not a lot of heat and/or air conditioning, as people seem to just put on more clothes.   The locals seem to think it is very cold and we see folks with hats, gloves and heavy jackets. Even our servers for meals sometimes wear gloves.

We are picked up and taken to the Aero Puerto for our flight over the Nazca Lines.  A man named Brady (like the Brady Bunch, he says) meets us at the airport.  We have to show passports again and step onto a scale to be weighed.

The plane is an 8-seater Cessna, and we are arranged by weight.  We are given small maps of the designs we will see - 12 of the more recognizable of hundreds.  Easy, smooth ride with the plane turning often so that everyone gets a view.  At first it is difficult to pick out the designs, and we totally miss the first one.  There are many lines all over the terrain.  The co-pilot tells us where to look - mostly "under the right wing" or "under the left wing".  Made by aliens? Part of a giant astronomical chart? Did these people invent hot air balloons? Dedicated to worship of water?  No one is sure who made these geoglyps or what their significance is, but they are almost imperceptible from the ground.  Most likely dated to between 900 BC and 600 AD, they are an archeological mystery.

Monkey with long tail.

Hummingbird (over 400' wingspan)

Spider

Dog.














Parrot

We fly over the town a bit too, and see the deep wells used by the town for water.

The flight lasts about 30 minutes.   Then we go back to our hotel to pick up luggage and head once again to the bus station for a 2:20 departure for Arequipa.  This will be our longest stretch.

 Comfy seats, but in this bus there is one large video screen which, unfortunately, is right in front of us. We can't control it, so we watch Mission Impossible (in Spanish), and Antman before the sound is turned off and Greg drapes a blanket over the screen. None of our fellow travelers (6) complained.

We are heading into more hills now, but the terrain is still dry and mostly barren. (Even more boring than west Texas, says Greg.)

We continue south along the coast for a quite a while, with waves crashing not far from the road at one point,

and pass the seaside towns of Tanaka and Chala.  Occasional vegetation, but mostly, dry, sandy desert.

Eventually the terrain becomes more hilly and rocky, and we begin to climb, with many switchbacks. Our speed is slowed by the road and lots of truck traffic.  Here they are negotiating a sharp curve.

There are obvious signs of mining, including a railroad which more or less parallels the highway. Mining is the primary source of income for the country - copper, zinc, lead, silver and gold. Unfortunately, contamination and pollution from mining is a big issue as are poor working conditions.

We arrive in Arequipa around midnight and are met by Wilfredo and taken to the Hotel Santa Rosa

which is in the old historic part of the town.  Arequipa, a UNESCO site since 2000, is known as "the white city" because most of its buildings are built from a white volcanic rock called sillar.   Though 1/10th the size of Lima, Arequipa is Peru's second largest city and boasts 300 days of sunshine a year.  We are at the foothills of the Andes Mountains.

Comfy bed. Goodnight!