Nasca Lines --> Arequipa

This entry covers 4 to 5 November

A short bus ride to the airport and we where boarding a tiny cessna. Capitan Vaso secured front seat in the plane and the propellors began to spin. Within seconds we were hovering like a dragonfly over the Nasca Lines lurching from left to right to give everyone an opportunity to see these odd geoglyphs´that were etched into the rock between 300BC and 600AD. Catching these on camera required a steady hand and super human levels of concentration noit to let rip into the papewr bags provided just in case. I must admit it was rather éery trying to place these lines...how, why, who?

From the airport, we made our way to the Icachincha cemetaries of Nasca from the 1000 to 1476 AD era. Buried clse to the aqueducts / dry river beds (representing the afterlife) individuals and families were buried in sitting positions facing the rising sun in the east clad with jewelry and ceramics for the afterlife. Each burial site was simply covered with wooden logs for easy access when another family member needed to be added. Unfortunately robbers raided the offerings for the afterlife and left the tombs exposed to the elements only to be covered in sand by the prevailing dry winds to be discovered by archeologists in 1996. What was left folowing the raids has been really well preserved given the super dry climate and protection from the sand. While ít was tradition at the time to grow one´s hair, many of the mummies´ hair continued to grow after death...their hair is currently 2m long!

The rest of the afternoon was for us (at last) so i decided to park easy by the hotel pool réading my book and dozing in the late afternoon sun. We had dinner in the town of Nasca and psyched ourseloves up for an 8 hours nightbus which departed at 10.30pm. They had reclinable seats which was a treat although the number of twists and turns in the road gave some indication of the mountainous terrain we were traversing (in the dark)! Daytlight welcomed the caverness conyons of the Colca area and the bustling town of Arequipa. The contract between the caverness arid mountains and the green pastures in their shadow could be put on a postcard.

This was the start of day 5 of the tour which I will update you on in due course.