Ana_Nasca, Peru

The worse bumpy ride ever!!!! We took a direct bus from Cusco that left at 6 pm and we arrived in Nasca at 8 am. Bumpy roads the entire time. I never get road sick and this time I did. HORRIBLE! I felt I wanted to puke the whole ride. YUMMY! Tim was feeling sick too. He even had his ear patch the whole time. Our driver was crazy! He kept going fast even in the rain. I was scared few times, that we’d go off the cliff. I’ve never seen so many signs for curves, every 5ft. At one point we stopped since other buses a head of us stopped also. Apparently there was a big puddle on the road due to too much rain. Here a lot of rivers overflow the roads when is rainy season. But our crazy driver thought of giving it a chance. He saw another car coming the other way and he felt daring enough to try it. I was so scared of tipping over. We made it though. I manage to take short naps throughout the night. I was so glad to be in NASCA alive in one piece. =)

As soon as we got off we were bombarded with hostel and hotel options. They all claim they had the best deal and the best accommodations and their competition sucked! We already had reservations so all we needed was to take a taxi. But they wouldn’t go away. I kept ignoring them and the more I did the louder they got and more people were surrounding us. Some guy claimed he was from the hotel we wanted to go. So we went with him. I’m glad we did those people were driving me nuts. We got there and he wanted to sell us the tour around the NASCAR lines that was basically the main attraction. The city itself was plain and small in the middle of the desert. But we were tired and wanted to take a nap. We were crazy enough to schedule it for noon. The flight itself was expensive we each had to pay $50 USD for a 35 minute ride on a small Cessna.

Our room had cable TV. We’re in heaven. It’s a privilege to have TV for relatively cheap and our own bathroom. For both we paid less than $10 USD.

After our power nap we went to the airport for our ride around the Nasca lines. There are a total of 200 figures and about 1,000 lines in this area. But we were going to see about 10 As soon as we got on the plane I felt sick. The plane was really tiny and there were 5 of us plus the pilot. Thank goodness we had the front seats. We took off and it wasn’t that bad. Tim warned me that these planes moved a lot, it was normal. So I was mentally preparing myself. At first it wasn’t bad, but when we took the first dip to see one of the figures I felt my stomach detaching from my body. I felt a hot and cold. I had to concentrate really hard. We’d fly twice around each figure one to the right hand side of the figure and the other to the left hand side. Not only I was feeling sick to my stomach but I was feeling trapped in tiny plane. It was sweating cold. I kept closing my eyes to breath and make sure I didn’t pass out. But Tim kept asking if I was OK! He said I’ve never looked so serious. I’m glad I did. The lines were cool to see. The figures we saw included spider, monkey, astronaut, humming bird, parrot, hands, tree and trapezoid. But I don’t think I’d do it again. The RIDE FROM HELL!

We went back to the hostel to rest a bit more. After a while we walked around the town. Like I said before, not to much to do. We went to the “Plaza de Armas”, which is like the downtown of the city. So far every city we’ve been to in Peru has one. We had some lunch at local place. After that we walked around some more in the hot and dry weather. I did time I was still feeling a bit sick, with a major headache. We decided we wanted to see lines up close to get the complete picture. So we were looking for another tour. This time it was cheaper only about $10USD. We left the tour for the next morning.

I’m glad we did. The tour was only the two of us and the guide. We first went to a small mountain where you can view a bunch of straight lines pointing to the horizon. It was cool to see how they made it. They moved the rocks away and the flattened the surface. I was amazed to see how straight the lines were. The German lady who studied the lines Maria Reiche, didn’t know how they’d make it that straight especially back then. The idea of the lines still remains a mystery. Maria studied the lines for 40 years trying to figure out the meaning of all the lines. She concluded the lines were created by the Nasca civilization dating 200 BC and 600 AD, since some of the geogliphs found were the same found on the culture’s artifacts. She also thing it could represent their calendar.
Interesting stuff! Even the guide said that it was a mystery that Maria stayed in that area studying for so many years, pretty much the rest of her life.

After our two-hour tour we headed back in to town for some lunch. Then we decided to just leave directly to our next town Ica, only 3 hours away, which in our clock is like 10 minutes. We’re so use to the long bus rides. We caught the bus right when it was leaving, talk about good timing. We were the only tourist on the bus. Not too bad! Nothing beats the first bus ride in Bolivia. =)