Day 5: 5/7/12
Rooster was better behaved this morning- we both woke up during the night delighted that we couldn't hear him and turned over for more sleep!!
I did get a nice wake up call though. After having a shower, I stepped down from the bathroom onto the tiled floor and wallop- the two legs went from under me. My leg hit off muireann's bed and my rear end hit off the step into the bathroom. Sore dose! Two nice big purple bruises to prove it!
Went for the ballestas islands trip, but again the harbour was closed because the sea was rough. So, we won't get to do that trip- but we got out money back!
Had a look around the stalls again and bought two matching bracelets- how cute!!
Then we found Paracas history museum with an old local guy, with long white hair and an Indian look about him. He was obviously a historian or archaeologist. He had no English but proceeded to show us around anyway with a pointing stick similar to a piece of a barley that was broken in half and stuck together with Sellotape. It seems that in the national reserve park they found, buried under ground, a tomb storing 40 mummies. This site is closed to the public but is only 3km away. There were skulls showing the deformation of heads. Firstly when they were babies they wore something that made their head stretch up- thinner and narrrower than ours. Apparently their ancestors would have looked like this and they were trying to replicate it. There were holes in the skulls also where they were beatn with hammers when they had died. We think this is right anyway- comprehension of Spanish through hand gestures wasn't great! The mummies were found in the fetal position, buried in layers with various artefacts- textiles, shoes, flute instrument, pots, hammers, knives.
A yank came in (who was related to Brian boru- of course, and had been to irish mass in spiddle- where else) and he explained some other things. He didn't seem to agree much with the local man. He said the Paracas people found were the first people on this area- the whole pisco, Paracas, Nazca area. They were overtaken by the Nazca people, then the Wari people, then ye Chica people and then by the Inca people. Then the Spanish arrived! He explained that the Paracas people were peaceful people (jugs show smiling faces) and were very intelligent. They could tap into the underground water to provide food for thrmselves. It doesn't rain here, the only water available is that from the Andes region which runs underground to the sea. The Nazca people were much more violent. Their ceramics show heads being chopped off, as you do!! They overtook the Paracas people but kept their heads for divination purposes. He reckoned that the Nazca people had built the Nazca lines to track where the underground water is. The animals depicted on the Nazca plains are reportedly by the Nazca people aswell, but ha ha, he reckons that isn't true. He said the evidence is now proving they were built by the Paracas people 1000 years before the Nazca people built their lines. He says the Nazca people didn't even know they were in it as the lines go through some of the animals. Similarly,the Cusco ruins may have been there when the incas came, even though we are led to believe the incas built them all. He informed us that it is the same story with our round towers. They may have been megalithic. Do we believe him! Apparently he has wrote a book about it- but we don't know who is. If ye are interested look up Brian Borus cousins!!
In Nazca he told us to go to ruins of an excavated pyramid. Apparently there are more under the hills. They were per Nazca anyway, think by the Paracas people, but the nazcas have claimed them. Think it is called cahawachi (that's phonetic spelling!!).
Anyone interested in history or general knowledge that's reading this can clarify these facts for us!!
Here we're other artefacts from the Nazca, Wari, cachi and inca period- including an inca hat- apparently there's only one in peru. And the quipu- the system of recording using string and nots. However they don't know what they were recording!!
We signed the guest book- only two other irish people had been there. The book was only as far back as 2010.
We lounged around at the harbour again for the day. It was very relaxing- nicer than Tenerife or lanzarote as there were very few people around!
Went back to the hostel to check up a few things on the Internet.
Then we went to the shack they called a bus station and waited an hour for the bus. Random American guy and presumably his brother beside us kept gabbing on, wrecking our heads!!
Got the bus anyway and had the lovely seats again! Muireann's would not stay back for her- she was not a happy camper. I put mine back just to test it and clicked to put it forward again and was lucky not to catapult out of the bus with the way it shot up!!
I read for most of the journey. It was pitch black outside so we couldn't see anything, although when we passed through Ica it seemed like a nice place. There were films on but volume was too low and subtitles were in Spanish!
When we got to Nazca we all had to stand around waiting at the side of the bus while they got everybody's bag one by one. Nazca isnt as nice as I thought it would be. We were expecting a town but this is all sandy and a bit shacky from what we can see so far. We passed nothing really from the bus to the hostel and there's nothing in sight from here. Hostel is nice, they provided free taxi from the bus station but the owner hasn't a word of English, lots of nodding and smiling going on!!
Muireann walked into the timber frame of the bed just now and has a nice big purple bruise too! It goes well with her sunburned red neck, only on one side- she must have missed it with the sun cream!!!