We arrived in Nazca at half five in the morning, found a hotel and grabbed a couple of hours more sleep. We then arranged a flight over the Nazca lines and just as we were leaving the hotel I realised I had left my camera on the bus – it must have fallen out of my pocket while I was sleeping and, as it was dark when we got off, I didn’t notice it. The most annoying part of this was the fact that I’d lost all my photos of Colca Canyon but I guess it could have been worse.
While we waited for our flight at the airstrip we watched a video about the lines, hypothesising about their origins and discussing how they were discovered. Of all the suggestions the one I liked best were that they were created by the local people as messages to their gods who, with the continued droughts, seemed to be ignoring them or at least not receiving their prayers via the local priests. It is believed that the people used to march down the lines trying to draw the power of the animals they were marching on.
The flight itself was the worst I have ever taken. The take off was smooth but nothing else about it was. There were six of us in the little Cessna and our pilot was very good, maneuvring us into positions to see each of the designs in turn although the dipping, soaring, twisting and heat in the plane (approaching midday now out in the desert) was doing nothing for mine or Sarah’s well being.
The first image we saw was a whale and after some frantic pointing by the pilot behind him I finally laid my eyes on it and wondered how I hadn’t managed to before. The shape was quite clearly a whale and it was right under my window. It was very difficult to judge the size of these shapes from the plane with nothing on the ground to compare them to. Next we passed the triangles and trapezoids believed to be paths pointing to hills that are local representations of distant mountains from where the people received their water. They supposedly marched down these shapes trying to draw the water from the mountains for their crops.
The next picture was the astronaut or the man. For me this is a primitive drawing of a human rather than a spaceman or alien but each to their own. It is also the only petroglyph (picture on a rock) whereas the others are all geoglyphs (drawn on the ground). We then flew on to see a dog, a monkey (for me the best one), a condor and the humming bird which is the clearest of the pictures. We then turned back and passed the tree and the hands which are next to the road so you get more of an idea of the size of these things (they’re big!) and got to fly over some ancient aqueducts, apparently not on the normal flight route. These were built by the Nazca people and are still in use today. We then returned to the airstrip where I was very glad to hit the ground without being sick and Sarah was sick!
That was about it for Nazca. I asked at the bus company about my camera but they basically said no chance. Next day we were off to Lima.
It was quite a short ride (7 hours) following the coast a lot of the way although there wasn’t a lot to see as this part of Peru seems to be cursed with a permanent coastal fog. We were pleasantly surprised by Lima after the Rough Guide made it sounds like quite a dump. At the bus station we tried once more in vain to track down my camera (the bus had been bound for Lima) then embarked on our next taxi adventure.
We made a reservation at a hostel in Miraflores, a very nice suburb of Lima then got in a taxi to go there. We showed him the address, agreed a price and off we went. The taxi driver spent the first ten minutes of the journey trying to sell Sarah some of his hotel recommendations (I was playing dumb, pretending I didn’t speak Spanish) which she politely refused. We arrived in Miraflores and he was pointing out what a nice area it was, good restaurants and we then pulled up at one of his hotels. We sat firmly in the back seat refusing his offers to go and look at it, asking to be taking to our hostel. He then had to go and ask for directions because he didn’t know where it was. A couple of minutes later he pulled up at another hotel, which was the wrong one, and tried to get us out but again we refused to move and more directions and another five minutes later we arrived at the right place. It didn’t look like the right place as it just looked like a house but it turned out to be ours so we paid, waited for our change, none forthcoming, so Sarah asked for it and he gave us all he had which was close. We then went to relax in our hostel where the people were very welcoming and friendly thankfully and even let us name our own discount!
The next day we explored Miraflores and reported my camera missing at the police station. This ended with us having to pay 10 soles to a fat mustachioed police officer to get the loss form. We managed to find a sportsbar that was showing Liverpool v Bayer Leverkusen so we went to watch that (Sarah – luckily my Spanish is good enough to be able to read Cosmopolitan so that kept me amused!) then afterwards to the cinema to see Shall We Dance (Sarah – which was very good and even Chris enjoyed it).
The following day we caught the bus into Lima old town and walked from Plaza San Martin to Plaza Mayor where we were hoping to watch the changing of the guard which is supposed to happen everyday but didn’t on this day – typical! The old town has a few nice buildings and churches and we were pleasantly surprised by it as all we’d heard about it was that it was really dangerous. In the afternoon we took a tour of the Inquisition museum then bought our tickets for Trujillo before taking the bus back to Miraflores. It was a bit trickier catching it back and finally managed to get on in the outside lane of three while it waited at some traffic lights. That evening as we sat in our room Sarah spotted a little visitor sneaking about on the floor – there was a little mouse scurrying about.
For our final day in Lima, we visited some ruins in Miraflores (Sarah – Huaca Pucllara I think). These were a really good find as we had an interesting tour around the pyramid and administration area and were virtually the only tourists on the site. The site has been buried beneath a mound of mud for ages so is very well preserved and is constructed of thousands of adobe bricks. The site also contains the graves of a number of women who were apparently sacrificial victims. It also had some of the strangest dogs I’ve ever seen called viringos which are native to Peru and have no hair except for on their heads and the tips of their tails, are grey and very warm (Sarah – some people believe they can be used to help ailments such as arthritis by holding them next to the affected area because they are so hot). We reckon they look like the hyenas from the Lion King (Sarah – because they often don´t have pre-molars and so their tongue hangs out of the side of their mouth).
In the afternoon we were going to walk along the beach but that fog was still there so we opted for a double header at the cinema instead of Phantom of the Opera and Closer. In the evening we took the bus to Trujillo.
Sarah – my turn to take over for a bit now. The bus journey was OK, although there was a very annoying, loud snoring man just across the aisle from me so I didn´t sleep brilliantly. We arrived in Trujillo at about 7:30 and as the bus office was a fair way out of the centre, we had to take a taxi. Again, the bloke was trying to sell us hotels and despite us telling him that 100 Soles was too much for us, took us to a 3 star hotel to look at it. We duly went in (we didn´t have anything to lose or a reservation or anything) and it was very nice but their idea of a discount was lowering the price to 90 Soles so we left again. Having got the message that we weren´t going to pay that much, the taxi driver took us to a hostel that was charging 50 Soles – much more like it.
After checking in, we went in search of breakfast and then for a wander around. The centre didn´t seem to be anything too exciting, although the main square – Plaza Mayor or Plaza de Armas – was quite nice and some of the buildings are quite attractive. We then went to book a tour to a couple of pre-Inca ruins for the next day. After that, we had lunch and then returned to our room for a siesta – the overnight bus journey was catching up with us. That was about it for Friday.
Yesterday (Saturday), we got up and breakfasted in time to be picked up at 10:20 by the tour agency. We sat downstairs in the hostel and waited...and waited...by 11:00, they hadn´t showed up so I went to call them...except the number on the ticket thing was wrong...so, we tried the number in the Rough Guide for the hostel next door to the agency, which was affiliated with it, but that number was wrong too. By this time, they were an hour late so we figured they probably weren´t coming. So, we got in a taxi and went to the office. Sure enough, they´d forgotten about us. We were a bit worried as we were supposed to be doing two tours but the lady at the office said that they´d be there to take us in a minute and that we´d be OK for the later tour too. About 10 minutes later, our guide turned up and off we went.
Our first tour was to the temples of the sun and the moon, which are 2 complexes about 10 minutes out of Trujillo, built of adobe (mud and water). The temple of the sun is just a ruins of a temple and although you can make out the layers, apparently after excavation, they haven´t found anything of any interest inside. The temple of the moon is a different matter though. They were built by the Moche culture during 100 – 1200 AD and the temple of the moon seems to be the one that was used for ceremonies etc. It has 5 layers, each layer above built after the layer below it had been filled in with adobe bricks. Apparently, they would fill in the current layer of the temple and build another one when something significant happened, like the leader dying, although the guide also said that it happened about every 100 years, so I´m not quite sure how that works. The amazing thing about the temple is that there are lots of murals on the walls, and they´re all in really good condition because they had been protected by the bricks used to fill in the temple.
It was quite a quick tour, but very informative, and then we were brought back to Trujillo to have lunch before embarking on our next tour to the Chan Chan complex, which was built by the Chimu culture, who came after the Moches and we apparently the last culture to be taken over by the Incas. Our first stop was the temple of the rainbow, which they believe was used to envoke rain. It has been greatly restored, with about 60% of what we saw being original. It was interesting to wander around and up to the top of the temple to get a feel for how they were built etc. They don´t have much information about any of the ruins around here really and in this one, they only found evidence of offerings of seeds and wooden idols.
Next, we were taken to the museum for the Chan Chan complex, which was quite small but interesting and again, they had some viringo dogs. Apparently, they´re not very common in Peru, they´re only kept in museums so that visitors can see them as they´re typically Peruvian.
Our final stop for the complex was the Tschudi palace. Apparently, there are 7 temples and 9 palaces altogether in the complex, although it´s only the one temple and one palace that have been partially restored and are open to the public. The palace was huge, more like a small town really, with it´s own squares, reservoirs and cemetery. It´s amazing how much of it has survived (although at this one, it´s only about 35% of what you see that is original) and how much they could restore it from what remained. Some of the decoration on the walls was very attractive. Because of the climate here – very hot and dry – the adobe seems to preserve reasonably well. A lot of the destruction of the temples and things was done by grave robbers, who did it perfectly legally hundreds of years ago and were even licenced! If they hadn´t destroyed them, who knows how well they would have been preserved?
We then went to Huanchaco, which is a fishing village and now tourist resort about 20 minutes from Trujillo. We wandered along the promenade and up the pier for a bit. It was a nice enough little place, although nothing hugely exciting. They do still fish from traditional reed boats, which you could see on the beach, which was quite interesting.
We then returned to Trujillo where Chris had to suffer another loss after leaving his wallet in the back of a taxi never to be seen again. Luckily there was only money in it so again it could have been worse. Today, Chris has been listening to the Carling Cup final...better not mention that though by the sound of it. Tomorrow, we´re thinking of heading to Chiclayo for more ruins and tombs so we´ll let you know all about that soon...
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