Nazca and Northward

We boarded the Cruz Del Sur night bus to Nazca at the Arequipa bus depot. The nine hour bus ride was daunting, but the seats reclined so we stayed optimistic. Unfortunately optimism wasn't enough as the seats, like many other things in Peru, are designed for people maximing out at 5ft 6in. Sleep was attained, but none of it was good.

We arrived in Nazca, a rocky desert landscape laced with brown and red mountains, about 7AM. The region is know for a series of enormous petroglyphs that can only be viewed from the air. Archaeologists believe these glyphs are the remnants of open-air temples of the Nazca people. The simple goal was to board an airplane, check out the Nazca Lines, and head out to Ica. After a bit of unsuccessful haggling we hopped a van to the airport. We were in the air in a plane the size of an escalade within an hour.

I had seen these things on the internet many times. I never truly understood the scale and complexity of the entire landscape - crisscrossing roads, trapezoids stretching hundreds of meters across then desert, and a few strange animal glyphs -

From Nazca we hopped a bus to Ica, home of sand dunes and Pisco. The place to stay in Ica is about 10minutes outside of town in a tiny desert oasis called Huacachina. It's more or less a tiny hippy hideout with paddleboats and dune buggies. A couple days there is almost too much unless you are really good at doing nothing. Day 1 was nothing but food. Day 2 we hopped a cab to the Museo Regional de Ica, home of desiccated mummies and elongated skulls, but were sidetracked by an offer to drink Pisco.

Marco the driver brought us first to Bodega Lazo, where he proceeded to get us hammered on every wine and pisco available. Pisco distillation is a simple, single pot distillation of fermented grape juice. The liquor is stored in clay jars to rest, but typically is not aged like a whiskey or rum. Approximately 5kg grapes go into each liter of product. I don't know why Pisco isn't more widely known. The stuff is delicious.

 

We continued our tour to another distillery, El Catador, and were fed more drinks. Drunk and hungry, we got our cab driver to bring us to a food spot, but the guy backed his car into a pole and decided to drop us at the museum instead. Seeing as we were too far gone to properly enjoy the museum, we wandered to a mall down the road, got some KFC and Pizza Hut, and caught a cab back to Huacachina. Our next task - Dune Buggy and sandboarding.

Not much to explain here other than holy crap is it awesome. Here are some pictures:

 

We moved on to the beach town of Paracas the next day, where we did little but eat and relax. We then hopped a bus back Lima, where I am currently writing this. Tomorrow we leave for Puno on shore of Lake Titicaca, from which we will cross into Bolivia.