DAY 187
Bye bye Arequipa! We won't miss the crazy traffic and driving for sure. We ate very well but the city lacks a wow factor and even the Colca is only okay. Our next destination is Nazca with its famous drawings. All the way to Nazca is very desertic with small pockets of green. Even by the sea. When it's not rocks it's dunes... The region is very dry indeed. It makes sense now why the seafront was never developed the way it was in other parts of the world. There's nothing to sustain a civilization here. We arrive exactly on time after a 9h journey; that's impressive!
Nazca is nothing but a tiny dusty spot in the middle of nowhere. We stretch our legs with a quick walk around town and stumble upon yet another procession. By now we can only assume processions are as popular as football in South America ;) This one is unusual though because the marching band are Mariachis. And we're quite a long way from Mexico! It's the Virgin of Guadalupe which, you may not know (I sure didn't), is Mexican.
DAY 188
When they play "El condor pasa" in the bus that brings us to Nazca small airfield it's impossible for me not to release all the bad jokes and play on words I repressed since we entered the country ;) The plane that takes us is nothing more than a flying van so they have to weight us precisely with our gear to balance the weight in the plane. FYI I weight 73kg with the camera! The ride is bumpy and 30min is the max we can endure without being sick but wow! It's incredible to see all these drawings. The river marks are also very clear and all over the plain. They look a bit out of place is the very dry landscape but they do have floods from time to time. So we can have a good look, the pilot does sharp turns around each drawing. One for the right side of the plane and one for the left. When it's not "our turn" to look we look straight ahead and breath deeply to fight back the nausea!!! There's the option to do an hour long ride and see more drawing but we were both too happy to be back on the ground. More and we would have had to surrender our breakfast ;)
DAY 189
We hang out by the pool for the rest of the day yesterday, there's really nothing else to do in Nazca. Today, we're back on the bus to Lima. The landscape remains very desertic for a good 2 hours before it starts to change. It gets greener as we arrive in Lima. We don't stay in the city yet. We have a rental car awaiting us to head north and explore pre-Inca sites. The traffic in Lima is ridiculous and it takes forever to get out of that sprawling city. After, it's the Pan-American highway, all the way to Alaska (CHECK) ;) It's very decent for some time but eventually becomes a simple two way road with crazy buses and trucks. Special award for Flores buses. Don't ever take these buses, their drivers are raving mad. They're reckless and dangerous. Everyone is crazy on the road here it's true. Bus and trucks overtaking in dangerous condition is the norm but Flores drivers seem able to take it to unprecedented levels.. After a long day on the road, we stop in Barranca for the night.