- Another early morning. Woke up at 8 am and after much back and forth, I decided against the Nazca flight. As cool as it is, USD 70 for a 30-minute helicopter flight is just too expensive, even for the world-famous Nazca Lines. Same deal for Victoria and Camilla (An example that great minds think alike!) In lieu of doing the Nazca flight, we decided to head to the metallic tower where we could see two of the many Nazca figures - the Hands and the Tree.
- At the hostel lobby, I met Shena and Mike, two Singaporean travellers (first Asians I met on my trip). Shena is studying at New York, and both are volunteering with an organization ´Travelers not Tourists´ at Arequipa. They gave me some recommendations on sight-seeing at Arequipa and we exchanged contacts to meet up at Arequipa.
- We got the direction from the hostel reception and started off our bus adventure. The bus fare was 2 sols - not bad for a local bus that has reclinable chairs (most of them not functional though), TV and a restroom at the back. The passengers were an interesting mix of mainly locals, kids, a few pet dogs and goats, and a couple tourists alike. It doesn´t take a genius to figure that the show on TV was a comedy, but interesting enough there were quite a number of PG-13/PG-18 (both nudity and violence) in the show, which would be a big no-no for kids in the states. I guess in Peru (or maybe in South America in general), there is less restriction on the TV/movie rating - not sure what the system was though.
- The tower is 13 m high and we could clearly see the Hands and the Tree figure. Also visible was the Lizard, which was split in two when the Pan American Highway was built in 1937 (they were not aware of the Nazca Lines at that time) and many geometrical shapes around. It is widely suggested that the Tree represents a local tree called Huarango, which is abundant in the Nazca Valley. The Huarango tree supposingly lives up to 1000 years and the Nazca people used the wood of this tree as columns of temples.
- Darn it! They should have built the tower at like 100 m. Who needs the helicopter then?
- After the tower, we walked along the Pan America road and climbed a small hill (Victoria liked to call it a ´small mountain´). From there you couldn´t see any Nazca figures, but many lines radiated out in all directions.
- We then flagged another local bus which took us to the Maria Reiche Museum. Maria Reiche was a German lady who dedicated over 50 years to protect and study the Nazca Lines. The museum includes the cottage of Maria where she lived (while studying the Nazca Lines) until she moved to the Nazca Line Hotel (the hotel where Planetarium was located). It was fascinating to see someone with such passion, such dedication. For the first 30 years of her study, she recieved no financial aid from any organization and her study was soely funded by her sister. It was not until she was 70 that the Peruvian government started her funding. Her personal belongings including typewriter, camera, measuring tools etc. remained at the cottage. On the right side of the Museum is her grave, where she was buried in 1998.
- What we thought to be a short trip to the Museum turned out to be one of the most memorable event of the day. After checking out the museum, we asked Alex, our guide at the museum, if it was safe to walk over to the village on the opposite side of the road and he volunteered to accompany us on the walk. One kid approached us and volunteered to be our guide/security (to drive away the dogs along the way). As we started walking, more and more kids joined us and we ended up playing with the kids for a good two hours. Kids in the village play with tires, marbles, slings and spinning tops. I got teased by Alex (and the kids) for never playing with a top. Spinning the top on an axis (while pulling a string) was easy - the hard part was transferring the spinning top from the ground to the palm and passing it onto the next person while retaining the spinning motion. Most of the kids bus to Nasca downtown for schooling, so they are exposed to internet, PS2 etc and a couple older kids speak simple English. The interraction was an amazing experience. Alex even volunteered to arrange mountain bikes for us (at the village) on the next day if we were interested. Of course we were interested, but too bad we booked our night bus to Arequipa. We thought there was nothing else to do in Nazca (we were not interested in the Aqueducts or Carving Rocks), until now. Alex - you are the best! We were so reluctant to leave, and a couple kids waited with us for our bus.
- On our bus ride back to hostel, we met an Italian girl Sylvia (We saw her earlier this morning when she got off the bus at the tower) and had dinner together. As a tourist in a small town (like Nazca), you can´t help bumping into each other.
- My bus to Arequipa was at 10 pm (Cruz del Sol), and Camilla/Victoria´s bus (Oltursa) was at 11 pm. Since none of us booked anything at Arequipa, we decided to do our own research on hostel and meet at Arequipa´s Plaza at 7 pm the next day for dinner.
Hostel Recommendation: Walk-On Inn (15 Sols/ USD 5, 5-bed dorm) ***** - Great location. Friendly Staff. Their tours might not be the best, but lots and lots of brownie points as an ideal hostel to meet fellow travellers (namely Camilla and Victoria in my case :p)
