Sand, sand, sand

Day 7 - 13th December
Another pretty good overnight bus brought us back into Lima and we got straight on another to Ica, 4.5 hours south.  After what seemed like unending desert we arrived in Ica, which doesn't seem a particularly inspiring place, although our taxi driver told us there are a few wineries in the area.
We checked in to Hotel Bananas in nearby Huacachina, a small village consisting almost entirely of hostels, surrounding the shores of an oasis hidden amongst towering sand dunes.  It's a pretty impressive location and the hostel is rustic but has everything we need, including a pool and hammock terrace.

Huacachina Oasis 

Jon relaxing at Bananas Hostel

After some well-earned pool-side relaxing to soak away the bus journeys, we booked ourselves on a late afternoon buggy ride and sandboarding trip in the dunes above the town.  What a great trip!  We sped through the dunes in a buggy, clinging to the sides of hills and tumbling over near-vertical drops.  The sandboarding was great fun too - there's nothing quite like throwing yourself off the edge of a dune when you can't see the bottom.  The smaller ones we attempted standing up, snowboard style (needless to say Jon was better at this than me and persevered onto the larger slopes).  The big slopes we tackled face down on the board like a skeleton bob - so much more fun than repeatedly falling on your arse trying to do it the proper way!

with our sandboads

sunset in the desert

Back to the hotel to wash the incredible quantity of sand out of my ears and now for a beer...


Day 8 - 14th December
Today we devoted some more time to relaxing (it's a hard life!)  We hung around hostel, reading our books and drinking tea and then caught a taxi into the nearby town of Ica to see the museum.  It turns out the museum doesn't get a lot of visitors - we were the only ones there and they had to turn the lights on for us!  Still, the museum was interesting and gave us an insight into the local tribes and cultures in the Ica and Nasca valleys from 200BC to the Incas.  There was a very impressive collection of pots and other clay items, all well preserved in the sand, as well as some fantastic textiles dating back thousands of years.  The main draw, though, was the large collection of mummies, again fantastically preserved complete with funereal robes and hair.  There was also a rather alarming collection of deformed skulls - it seems it was a tradition in Nasca and Ica cultures to bind children's heads to force them to grow in a point.  Very creepy!


Day 9 - 15th December
Today we got up early for a trip to the Islas Ballestas, a small group of rocky islands off the nearby coast which are home to huge sea bird and sea lion colonies, nicknamed the Peruvian Galapagos.  After a few days in the desert it was great to be back by the sea and the islands certainly didn't disappoint.  Our boat took us  up close to the islands and we were able to see hundreds of thousands of birds, including cormorants, terns, boobies raising their chicks, pelicans and penguins.  There were also hundreds of huge sea lions basking in the sun, many of the females were pregnant, although sadly we were too early to see any babies.  It was amazing to get up so close to the birds and sea lions.  Our boat also took us past the 'candelabra' - a mysterious geoglyph carved into the sand.  No-one knows how old it is or why it was created.  It was a great taster for our trip tomorrow...

bottlenose dolphins

boobies and chicks

sea lion colony

penguins

pelican

pregnant sea lion

"Candelabra" geoglyph

In the afternoon we braved the somewhat dodgy wifi connection and skyped our parents - hooray for the wonders of modern technology.


Day 10 - 16th December
We had another early morning to join our trip to the Nasca lines.  After some typical Peruvian planning, which left us waiting at a travel office for an hour and a half waiting for a man who had come from the same place as us we headed off to the tiny airport at Nasca.  Since the plane crash a few years ago the number of airlines has reduced dramatically (now only 4 or so fly) and the price has gone up accordingly.  It was definitely worth the cost though - the experience of flying over the lines in a tiny plane was one of the most amazing, if not necessarily enjoyable of my life.  Our plane had 4 seats and I can honestly say I've never experienced turbulence like it!  Our pilot took us through death-defying spirals over each figure so we could see them clearly from all sides of the plane - great for viewing the mysterious shapes but not so great for the stomach!  Air sickness aside, the lines truly are as enigmatic, mysterious and beautiful as everyone says and. although most recent theories seem happy that they were created for religious ceremonies an as offerings to the gods, one can't help but wonder why the Nasca people went to such extraordinary lengths to create them.

our tiny plane

Nasca lines from the air

Monkey

Hummingbird

Sadly we then had to hang around in Nasca town for 7 hours waiting for our night bus to Cusco.  There isn't much to recommend the town of Nasca, but our wait was made more pleasant by spending it in the company of 3 guys from Midhurst, who are doing a similar trip to us.