End of tour
Howdy! Well... had a nightmare night bus (well actually could have been way worse but you gotta complain about something ;) ) - was hot and the looongest 8 hours with seats that hardly reclined, was very stuffy - but made it in the end to Nazca... Nazca was a pretty small town and unbeleivably completely not set up for tourists... Went to this cemetary where we saw some mummies etc before doing the flight over the nazca lines... i was in a 3 seater plane (cessna 172 or something) - it was amazing - the lines were so clear... although there are lots of thermals up in those skies (felt a lot of them! eek!) The lines are thought to have been drawn about 500BC and were only discovered about 50yrs ago... people have thought they were put there by aliens (or for aliens) esp. due to some of the burial grounds around there - they have found lots of skulls with holes drilled thru them. There are also lots of underground irrigation channels from those times, lined with bolders - all very neatly done. So it is thought that the nazca lines were all part of some ritual - the nazca people used to walk along them (they are many geometric lines around them) to try and massage the land to give them water (apparently around that time there was the beginning of a mega drought).
The following day we went to ´this place´on the way to Pisco for sand buggies and sand boarding.... the buggies were so much fun - it just like being on a roller coaster going straight up adn down steep dunes, doing loops etc - heaps of fun... And then the sand boarding (most of us just went down on our tummies)... did 3 - they got longer and steeper each time - but managed to have an awesome time on each! We also saw an oasis out in the desert where we were - full of banana and palm trees etc - pretty cool - just like you see in the cartoons :).
Then onto Pisco... It suffered badly from an earthquake 15 August last year... was pretty bad... we havent really been confronted too much with the poor conditions some people have to live in - but couldnt get away from it in Pisco... - pretty sad. Altho having said that didnt stop us having a few pisco sours to celebrate Ruth´s last night on tour with us (she left today to go to the US to join up with a new tour group). So am now in Lima and it is a bit sad - another session of goodbyes... But I am so looking forward to Ecuador - Otavalo markets here i come!!!! Gabby has shown me some of her bargains she got so i know the prices... and i have to send stuff back anyway - may as well make it worthwhile!
Lima - we are staying in Miraflores - a nice neighbourhood - and have been for a wander and dinner. I also went for a walk with Carmel to book my hostel for tomorrow night (1/4 of the price of the hotel) and it looks ok - only there for 1 night this time... and then i will be coming back to lima one night at midnight as a stopover on the way to caracas...
So will be wandering the Lima streets tomorrow... and maybe adding some pics for you to look at :) Otherwise the next time you hear from me will be in Ecuador!
Later gators!
