Day 6: 6/7/12
Up for breakfast at 7.30am. Collected for nasca flight at 9am. Our tour guide collected us and two aussies and brought us to the airport. He had julio iglesias playing and was wondering did we know him. I kinda nodded that we'd heard of him. The response i got was "very romantic, ha ha!". Of course, i jist laughed!!
Waited for hours in the nasca airport!
Met an Irish couple from tipp and were chatting about their schedule and ours. They were doing the right job and having nine days all inclusive sun holiday in Mexico on the way home!
Two Aussie guys waiting for flight with us. They had spent 8months living in buenos aires before travelling around.
Plane was tiny. Two Aussie guys in the back, me and muireann in front of them and pilot and co-pilot in front of us, wedged up against the windscreen. It was fairly revving it when we were going to take off, but we made it! It lurched a little now and again and I had to hold in tightly to my seatbelt, as if that would help. It looked cool though, looking over the while desert. When we got near the figures, they turned the plane sideways so that the person on the left could see. One of the wings was perpendicular to the ground, pointing to the figure so we would see it. Then the plane would do a complete u-turn so that it was completely turned to the right side. This did not go well with our tummies- they were turning and twisting along with the plane. There were 12 figures so lots of turning around!! I felt a bit light headed and nauseous but loved the surprise I got every time I saw one of the figures. They aren't very clear so it takes a few seconds to find each one (with the co-pilot screeching through the microphone "down down down down". Muireann at the start was enjoying it, but a few minutes later I looked over and realised she was no longer looking out the window. She only saw the figures on the map in her hand. She was as white as Casper and the pilots copped on fairly quickly. They were turning round with their thumbs up smiling and saying okay?? Both of us smiling back saying- face the road will ya!!! We landed safely anyway- no vomiting, despite the sick bags in front of us. Neither ourselves or the Aussies were right afterwards. Felt very hung over, light-headed and faint. Not good! Later we found out that everyone gets sick. Our flight was even in a day with perfect weather and no turbulence. General motto- dont go turning sideways in small planes!
The flight fairly took the talk off us so we had ro lie down for a half hour!! We had lunch and plenty of water to recover!
Then our tour guide was back to bring us to cahuachi! He had collected us in a new Hyundai in the morning. So we were quite surprised to see an 80s Nissan sunny. We were brought back to our childhood!! He informed us he needed this car as we had to drive 30km on a bumpy road- that was just what we wanted to hear after our morning of motion sickness!! We headed off anyway and it turns out cahuachi is within in the middle of the desert. He turned off the main road and onto desert which seemed to have no road!! Don't know how he knew where to go!! A few times he slowed down and even pulled up. I think he was checking something in the car or knew it was really bumpy, buy muireann thought he was going to pull us out and rob us of everything!! Luckily he was a nice man (Oscar) and he didn't do that!
The desert was cool to drive through becsuse it was just so vast- samd abdolutely everywhere!
He did to pull up to show us the type of tree that they would have used to make the Nazca lines and to show us human remains. There are lots of bodies under the ground so lots of bones lying around. Then he had to Hotwire he car to get it going again! This does sound dodgy, but he was a gentle soul with a great love for his first car!! While he went to get the car and start it up again, we both had to relieve ourselves and did our bit to fertilise Peru!!
Then we got to cahuachi. It was class! It was only discovered 20 years ago. It is a series of walls and stairs in the shape of a pyramid. They are uncovering other walls all the time and there may be up to 20 pyramids in the area. They think that they were used for religious and sacrificial purposes. Tgey are designed so that people at the bitton could Easily hear soneone speaking at the Top. They are near the nasca valley which has a spring so they may have been thanking the gods for that. Years ago they were completely covered over by sand, rain (?) and water. According to Oscar this was the straw that broke the camels back and the people moved out of the area!! There was a pyramid beside it that is just being discovered- that looked real crumbly and broken compared to the other one. So not sure if the main one was preserved better under the sand or If the locals have restored it.
It was really windy so hard to hear oscars explanations in his nasca English. Also the sand blowing around was taking the legs of us and we were completely covered in it- muireann made our she even had it in her eyebrows!! You could see the haze of sand in the distance!
Chatting to Oscar in the car on the way back. He told us their school system is like ours and they all learn English in school but they aren't that interested so most people just barely pass it. Also chatting about cars and Toyota are the most popular ones around. Lots of hilux's as there are a lot of people working in the copper mines. Lots of money in the mines apparently. Especially illegal mining! Wages must be poor enough though as he said that local people don't go on the nasca flight as it would cost up to a months wages. They also export a lot of seaweed.
It was hot today but probably just low 20's. He said its always like this- it doesn't get hotter in summer. It was really windy in cahuachi. That's because it's winter. They never see any rain!!
We wandered around town then- its not very big. There's a nice square in it. Then we had dinner in a nice restaurant- la encantada. Then, early to bed!! It doesn't seem like any of the locals or the tourists go out after nine anyway! No pub scene around here!!
We were talking gobbledygook after the flight so hopefully we're back to normal tomorrow!!