Nazca Lines

A luxury coach drive through the southern Peruvian desert became a gradual climb up to the Nazca plateau in the Andes mountains; we arrived in Nazca mid-afternoon. The town is bigger than we expected, and we set about exploring.

Took a morning flight for an aerial view of the Nazca Lines and was impressed with the immensity of the location. Why anyone would wander around such remote locations in the wilderness and create huge pictograms on the ground is baffling but obviously their meanings were important to their creators.

We intended visiting the ancient Nasca civilisation aqueducts and cemetery in the afternoon before departing on the overnight coach at 10pm tonight. However got news of miners protesting over pay and blocking the highway tonight (article in the last CFMEU union magazine). To beat the blockade we decided to leave town on the earlier 2:30pm coach to Arequipa.

Not all well laid plans have smooth sailing - as has a lot of this trip so far! Sure we beat the road blockade BUT there was a bus crash some distance ahead of us and the highway was shut down for several hours so a 12 hour trip became nearly 20 hours - luckily we had a nine seat sleeper compartment to ourselves with leather fully reclining seats like airways business class and they were comfortable the whole journey. Unfortunately apart from any initial explanation by the driver they didn't really look after us Gringos, we were in the dark with no reading lights for 3 hours while we parked beside a cliff on the ocean side - we think it is just language barrier because the people here are lovely.

 We have now showered and will soon head off to find a restaurant as we haven't eaten since our late breakfast yesterday after the flight. Will eat anything right now!