La Llama Loca: Alien landing strips and Mummies

After an interesting ride through the desert from Lima, we arrived in Nazca, which is located in southern Peru in the Atacama desert. We disembarked from the bus into a crowd of taxi drivers and hotel promoters, all trying to get us to go with them. We had been warned that now we were on the ¨Gringo Trail¨that this would get worse. We were staying at the Hotel Alegria, and there was actually a Hotel Alergia II that several taxi drivers tried to get us to go to. Our hotel was quite nice, and had a pool which proved to be vital for an enjoyable day in the desert. Upon arrival we booked a flight for the next morning over the Nazca Lines.

We arose at 6:30am the next day to get out to the airport for the flight. The lines are best seen when the angle of the sun is low and there tends to be strong winds in the evening that blow up dust, decreasing visibility. After a short video on the history of the lines and possible theories to there purpose we were escorted out to a small four passenger cessna.

A short taxi and sprint down the runway and we were airborn, the Atacama Desert streching out under us.

The pilot then took us over a dizzying run over all the Nazca Lines, which are shaped as animals, geometric shapes and other designs. In order to allow for good photos the pilot would pull into a sharp turn and spiral around the geoglyph, so that the ground was below one wingtip and the other pointed towards the sky. To be fair to passengers on both sides this was executed in both clockwise and counter clockwise directions. Katie was glad that we hadn´t had the chance to have breakfest yet.

That evening we had an amazing meal at a local resturant. We had a pollo causa to start, which is a sort of potato and chicken cassarole/cake. For my main I had lomo saltado, which is like a beef stir fry but is seasoned with a local sauce. We had pisco sour, a grape liquor drink made with egg whites and lime juice, and tres leches for desert. One of the best meals so far this trip!

The next day we spent a lazy morning enjoying the pool in the hot desert sun. We decided to got to a local chicken joint for lunch and ordered a platter of different bbq meats. I really wish my spainish was a little better as in addition to chicken kabobs , the platter included beef heart kabobs and beef sweetbread (i.e. cow brains.) I managed to eat a squewer of the beef hearts, which had a very distinct taste and texture but the brains were way to chewy for me. Katie looked as if she had just gone for another flight over the lines.

That afternoon we headed out on a tour of the Chauchilla Cemetery. The cemetery contains bones, skulls, and mummies dating back to the Nazca culture around 1000 AD. The site had been thourghly sacked by grave robbers and the remains left scatter in the desert until recent efforts had restored some of the tombs. We had a good guide who gave us a detailed tour of the tombs and explained about what was known about the people. The mummies were pretty cool and very well preserved. Apparently having very long hair was a sign of success or prestige in their culture so many of the mummies looked like rasta skeletons. Some of the tombs also had "trophy skulls" that were buried with them. Very morbid but very interesting.

After the cemetary we went to a local potter who was still using traditional techniques to create some amazing artwork. We were given a demostration on how it was done, which included using paint brushes made from baby hair and polishing using a stone and oil from the side of your nose. After that we went to see a local gold processing plant. It was a very primitive operation were raw ore was crushed under a stone by rocking it back and forth. Mercury was then added to the paste, which was then put in mesh bags and the mercury was squeezed out by hand. Not a very healthy method, and only extracted about 60% of the gold. The leftover slurry was then left for the owner of the plant who sold it to larger companies (like Tom´s?) who used more sophisticated methods to retrieve the rest.
After our tour we headed back to town and caught the night bus to Cuzco. It was one of the windest roads I have ever been on and went over a pass over 4000 meters high. It was quite a bus ride but we arrrived safely in Cuzco at 10 am the next morning.