Mysterious Nazca
After returning from Machu Picchu, we shipped a box of souvenirs home, ate a great steak, went to the bus terminal to buy our own tickets (removing the middleman) and boarded another overnight bus, again in the same seats as when our camera gear was stolen the last time - just with even better security measures! This bus ride was probably the worst bus ride of our lives (yes I know we keep saying it!). The road curved every 100 metres - not a single straight for 13 hours and Janine felt terrible the whole way. But our gear was safe...
At 6am we arrived at the desert town of Nazca, renowned for its mysterious figures and lines drawn on the desert floor by a pre-Inca people, more than 500 years ago. These lines were only discovered in 1920 when commercial pilots began to fly over the area. Again there are various theories surrounding the figures and lines, but what remains remarkable is how these figures were drawn to be seen from the air - most of them measure more than 100 meters and one would not notice them from the ground!
After a shower and breakfast we went to fly over the lines in a small aircraft - Janine (still recovering from the terrible bus ride) wisely chose not to fly. The flight lasted about 40minutes and the plane really banked from side to side so that one could view the figures, experiencing the g-forces previously reserved for fighter pilots.
We decided not to stay in Nazca and caught a local bus (2.5 hours) to a town called Ica and from there a taxi to the desert oasis called Haucachina.
At 6am we arrived at the desert town of Nazca, renowned for its mysterious figures and lines drawn on the desert floor by a pre-Inca people, more than 500 years ago. These lines were only discovered in 1920 when commercial pilots began to fly over the area. Again there are various theories surrounding the figures and lines, but what remains remarkable is how these figures were drawn to be seen from the air - most of them measure more than 100 meters and one would not notice them from the ground!
After a shower and breakfast we went to fly over the lines in a small aircraft - Janine (still recovering from the terrible bus ride) wisely chose not to fly. The flight lasted about 40minutes and the plane really banked from side to side so that one could view the figures, experiencing the g-forces previously reserved for fighter pilots.
We decided not to stay in Nazca and caught a local bus (2.5 hours) to a town called Ica and from there a taxi to the desert oasis called Haucachina.
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