Today was quite a turning point in the trip. We left Arequipa (2600m) around 7.30am and over the next 8 hours would leave the mountains behind and by night fall we would be at sea level. Literally. Our destination was Puerto Inka, a beach camp on the Pacific Coast. The journey was a real eye opener. The mountains we travelled through were nothing but rocks and sand. The valleys between them were massive sand drifts and any flat land was just never ending stretches of sand. Not the slightest piece of greenery to be seen. And yet every now and then there would be a house or two. Somehow people were living in this environment. It didn't just go on for kilometres it actually went on like this for the next couple of days. It was sheer desolation on a scale I have not seen before. Apparently it is like this all way the to northern Peru border. So after a week of mountains, high altitude and low oxygen levels we were finally on the coast. But the rocks and sand and desolation continued. But despite this it was an interesting drive along the coast line. We reached Puerto Inka around 4 and pitched our tents on the sand and just soaked up the coastal breeze. It was beach camping but not quite in Australian style. Not long after another Dragoman tour arrived, doing the Lima-Cusco route. 20 on board and it made us very thankful that with our little party of 5 we had oodles of room on board to have our own space. Jim & Masumi cooked up a BBQ feast of snags and beef with potatoes and salad. We sat around the campfire for a while before we all headed off to bed. We broke camp early the next day (Thur 26th) and were on the road by 8. We were headed to Nazca. The road is obviously a major transport route as there is a constant stream of trucks in both directions. It makes travelling a slow task, particularly through the hills. We picked up our local guide, Juan, enroute to Chauchilla Cemetery. This is an ancient Nazcan burial site, believed to be over 1500 years old. The Nazcans mummified their dead in the belief that they would be reborn. They were buried with food and water and in the case of chiefs, their servants were also buried with them once they died. The site has many open tombs with intact mummies still in place. Unfortunately grave robbers have caused a lot of destruction. Interesting and a little macabre, all at the same time. Whilst these people were relatively short (1.6-1.7 metres tall) they often grew their hair to a length of 2 metres. The hair on many of the mummies is still braided and intact. From here we then went to the Cahauchi Pyramid site. This is believed to have been an important religious centre for the Nazcans. Only about 15% of the entire site has been excavated from the desert sands. The buildings boast massive mud brick walls many of them over a metre in thickness. Finally arriving in Nazca, Megan and I were taken to the airport for our flight over the Nazca lines. From the air the lines are quite evident and very dramatic. To this day no one is really sure what purpose these lines served. The fact that they have survived for 1500 years or more is amazing. Some of them are quite large, over 65 metres in length and exactly how the Nazcans managed to create them with such accuracy is a mystery. Flight over we meet the rest of the group back at the motel for a "home cooked" meal of pumpkin soup with salad and fresh fruit.