Day 428 – Nazca
Today we slept through the pre warned 5am rooster calls at our accommodation La Maison de Lydia. Instead, we woke up at 6.30am to a fully risen sun as we prepared for our Nazca flight. We were told to bring our passports and 30 PEN ($13.15 AUD) per person (p/p) for the airport tax. At 7.30am, we went downstairs for the included breakfast. The breakfast consisted of a fried egg, bread, jam, butter, juice and coffee/tea.
At 7.45am, there was a knock on the door, as we were still eating breakfast. Turns out our ride had arrived. We quickly got our bags from our room and finished our breakfast before getting into the car. We had to go back into our room as we forgot the rest of the payment of $55 USD ($83.79 AUD) p/p. I don’t think we would get far without paying!
The driver was friendly, and just like the gentleman from yesterday, was promoting his own tours.
Once we arrived at the airport we were taken to the Aero Santos counter, where our ticket voucher, passport and weight was checked. We discovered that the gentleman from Oltursa had lied to us about 3 levels of flights. There are only 2 levels and the lowest level starts at 206m, not 100m as he said. We were then taken to another area to pay for the airport tax.
After paying the airport tax, we were told to sit. There were actually heaps of companies at the airport, which was really surprising. There is also an iPeru tourist information centre. We decided to ask for information from here, which was really useful. As we were still talking, we were called by the Aero Santos staff to go to airport security.
The entire process was really straight forward, as it was only 8.30am when we went through the ID and bag check. We just had a small camera bag and a handbag.
And then we walked towards the small Cessna plane. It was a 6 seater, plus the 2 pilots. There were only 5 passengers. On the tarmac, we were given a short briefing by one of the pilots, before we got into the plane. It’s a tight squeeze inside the plane but the seats were comfortable. It was however, hot inside the plane. We put on the head phones, so that we could listen to the pilots.
Nazca Lines
The plane ride was really good. At each of the Nazca lines, the plane would perform a left circle and then a rightward circle, so that you could see it from each side, which was great. However, the G-Force was high around some of the bends. Otherwise the ride was relatively smooth as there was no wind. The co-pilot, would give information about what Nazca lines we were looking at, and the direction to look at. It was an amazing experience and I highly recommend taking a plane to view these.
From above, the whale and the spider and very small (63m and 46m respectively), but other famous lines like the monkey (110m) and humming bird (96m), looked massive. Of course, from above, you can see so many lines in every direction. One thing we learnt from the planetarium yesterday (Day 427) is that there are heaps of geometric lines too. Some of these are over 3km in length.
My favourite line, was the lizard which is cut in two by the highway, that was made, before anyone knew about the lines. It’s so crazy that these were made so long ago, and can only be seen from the sky.
I was actually impressed with how clear the animal shaped lines were, and once again, we saw several of the spiral shapes (not shown by the pilot) that were shown at the planetarium.
After the lines, we went over the Aqueducts of Cantalloc (from the right side window) and then the Paredones ruins (from the left side window). We were not expecting to see either of these from above, which was a pleasant surprise. The total flight time was around 30 minutes.
After disembarking from the plane, we had to wait a short time, until our transport arrived. It was a van, with other people to drop off too. We dropped everyone else off, on the way back to our hotel. It didn’t take too long, and by 10am we were back in our hotel room.
Around Nazca town
At 11.45am, we motivated ourselves to leave the hotel again. As per the advice from iPeru, we asked several tour agencies for tours to the Aqueducts of Cantalloc (for today) and the Cahuachi Pyramids (for tomorrow). We knew that the aqueducts were part of a 3 stop tour, that could run at any time. But we also learnt that there is a tour to the Cahuachi Pyramids that includes 4 stops. The only downside is that it runs daily at 2pm.
We ended up changing our plans, and booking the aqueducts tour for tomorrow morning from Aero Santos (near the bus terminal) for 35 PEN ($15.35 AUD) p/p (not including entrance). For today, we decided to go on the 2pm tour. We booked this with Edunas Tours for 65 PEN ($28.50 AUD) p/p.
We had booked this tour, only 1 hour before the departure time. The lady at the office advised us to bring a jacket. This left us with a dilemma, of either having lunch or going back to the hotel to get my jacket. We just had a cheap and tasty lunch at Konitos Frozen.
Cahuachi Pyramids Tour
Around 2.10pm, a van arrived to pick us up from the Edunas Tours office. The van, full of 8 tourists, 1 driver and 1 guide drove past the airport and stopped at our next mode of transport. Off road buggy!
We got on and were strapped into the seats. We immediately drove off into the desert along some bumpy roads. It was really fun.
Acueducto de Ocongalla
The first stop was another Nazca Aqueduct called Ocongalla. This is an ancient open air aqueduct. The water comes through the ground from the Andes Mountain range. It is still used today for agriculture. One hundred years ago, it was used for drinking water too. After an explaination here, we got back into the buggy to continue the tour.
Cahuachi Pyramids
The next stop was the Cahuachi Pyramids. This is also a Nazca site, that is built in front of the Nazca river. It is believed that it was used as an administrative centre. Only 3 pyramids remain. There is no sign age, besides to name some areas and to tell you to stay on the path.
This is where the river is…during the rainy season
At first sight, the pyramids look amazing, and we were instantly thinking about Egypt. Later the guide told us that all the walls have been “reconstructed”, by placing adobe bricks around the existing wall and then covering this with a layer of mud. So there is a wall, around the original wall…
Even though I was expecting this to be the highlight of the tour, the lack of solid information and the fact that it’s heavily reconstructed left me a little disappointed.
Cahuachi Cemetery
Our next destination was the small tomb sites of Cahuachi Cemetery. It’s actually really small, and everything that you can see has been set up for tourists. It felt a little disrespectful to the bodies in my opinion, but it was interesting to see and hear the guide talk about the Nazca burial process. It was a very short stop.
After which, we had an opportunity to buy some cold water and soft drinks at a local store, which everyone was grateful for.
Sand Dunes
It was 5pm by the time we started driving to the Sand Dunes. This is where the fun began! Our driver had to keep stopping to let the air out of the tyres so that we could keep ascending the gradually steeper dunes. Once at the top, the driver drove right to the edge. I was thinking that we would be sand boarding down from here, which would have been insane.
Instead, we drove straight down! It was so fun driving down the dunes. We ended up stopping at a small dune. From here we sat on the boards and went down the dunes. We could do it around 2-3 times, depending on how many times you could be bothered climbing back up. Everyone had massive smiles on their faces by the end of the sand boarding.
After boarding, we had a long drive back to the edge of town. The sun was setting and the wind was really harsh. Since I didn’t have a jacket, the guide provided us with blankets, which were really useful. Due to no light pollution in the desert, we could see the star lit sky really well.
We were back in town and got dropped off at the Edunas Tours office at 7.30pm.
We had pizza for dinner at Chasqui Restaurant, before grabbing a taxi back to our hotel.