WEATHER: Hot and 31C
HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Getting to our camp site by the ocean
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Putting up some old smelly dodgy tents
BUYS OF THE DAY: Where do I start – I was a right ol shopaholic today!!!!
WORD OF THE DAY: Welcome back 'flapping'
An early start for Malar and I this morning. 6.20am wake-up for a 7.15am pick-up from the hotel. The others had to wait for us to finish before leaving, so they got to have a bit of a lay in till 9am. I am sure they didn’t mind as the Wi-Fi was back up this morning. Give us internet any day and it will keep us happy. Sad that it has got to that, but it is just a sign of the times. Mick is the only one not caught up in the whole internet, keep in touch with the world craze and is happy to make fun of us all when we lose connection or there is no connection. Ahhhhhh to be like that again……..
The airport was only a 10 minute drive from the hotel. Once we arrived we had to show our passports to get registered, pay an airport tax of 25SOL (8AUD) and get weighed, yikes! I haven’t seen a set of scales since I left home, no I lie, I also got weighed for the helicopter ride I did over Victoria Falls, but that was back in August. It’s good to see that not much has changed with the digits that appeared on the screen, especially with the eating habits I have had for the last 4 weeks. It was funny though, we had to get weighed with our bags and shoes on. Malar is a little waif, so she is half my weight and size and after she got on the scales after me, she was asked if she could leave her bag behind due to the restrictions. Too funny, I wasn’t asked to leave mine, but she was. I guess it would have been hard to leave a leg, or an arm, so I suppose it makes sense for Malar to leave something behind. Mark mentioned that we would probably have to wait around an hour, so we went outside and got some breakfast, which consisted of 2 small omelet rolls for me and a ‘make it yourself’ cup of coffee for Malar.
We waited till just before 9am where we were called to go through the passport check again from a manifest, collection of the paid tax, a very thorough security check and then into a waiting area and one step closer to our flight. We only had to wait around 10 minutes and then we were collected by the pilot and taken to the smallest plane on the tarmac for our scenic flight. We were also travelling with 2 young gals from Japan. They go the 2 back seats, we go the 2 middle seats and then the pilot and some other ‘worker’ dude sat in the passenger seat. We all got a window and as we were getting ready for takeoff, we put on our earphones and explained that we would all get equal sightings of each of the Nazca pictures and that we were to look where the tip of the wing was pointing so we knew where to look not thinking at this point that the plane would be twisting and turning to be able to do this. The penny just hadn’t dropped yet.
So after a few safety checks and clearance from the tower, which we heard through our headphones it was time for take-off in our little 6 seater plane. Once in the air, it was an amazing view of the Nazca Valley and just the massiveness of the dryness of the planes surrounding this dry and dusty city. It had some fields of green as they irrigate some vegetables from bore water, but it was dry and dusty and I am now starting to see why the Inca’s moved into the mountains and away from the aridness of the flat lands. The Nazca Lines are a series of ancient geoglyphs located in the Nazca Desert in southern Peru. They were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994. The high, arid plateau stretches more than 80 kilometers (50 mi) between the towns of Nazca and Palpa on the Pampas de Jumana about 400 km south of Lima. Although some local geoglyphs resemble Paracas motifs, scholars believe the Nazca Lines were created by the Nazca culture between 400 and 650 AD. On the ground, most of the lines are formed by a shallow trench with a depth of between 10 cm and 15 cm. Such trenches were made by removing the reddish-brown iron oxide-coated pebbles that cover the surface of the Nazca desert. When this gravel is removed the light-colored earth which is exposed in the bottom of the trench produces lines which contrast sharply in color and tone with the surrounding land surface. This sub layer contains high amounts of lime which with the morning mist hardens to form a protective layer that shields the lines from winds, thereby preventing erosion.
The Nazca "drew" several hundred simple but huge curvilinear animal and human figures by this technique. In total, the earthwork project is huge and complex: the area encompassing the lines is nearly 500 square kilometers, and the largest figures can span nearly 270 meters. The extremely dry, windless, and constant climate of the Nazca region has preserved the lines well. The Nazca desert is one of the driest on Earth and maintains a temperature around 25 °C all year round. The lack of wind has helped keep the lines uncovered and visible to the present day. On our flight we saw TheWhale, the Astronaut, the Monkey, the Condor, the Spider, the Hummingbird, the Tree and the Hands.
The flight itself was worth the 120USD. It was a great ‘scenic flight’. Add into that a few G forces as we dipped and waved our way over the lines. There was one point I looked at malar towards the end of the flight and she was looking a little green. It was nearly comparable to the aerobatic flight that I did in Swakopmund, as we dipped to Malars side; it was hard for me to hold my arm up to take a picture out of her window. There were some serious G’s playing with us. I was diagonal from the pilot, so he kept looking around at me to make sure everything was okay, so I would give a thumbs up, lucky Malar wasn’t sitting there as I am sure he would have got a different response!
What a great way to start the day. We landed at 9.40am and then we were transferred to a gas station in town where everyone and the truck was getting breakfast before getting back on the road again just after 10.30am. Before leaving town we did a stop at a traditional pottery place, where we met a guy called Toby that showed us how they make/made the pottery. His father found pieces of pottery in 1944 underground and it has been transferred down through the family. The pots were quite cute and not content with just buying one I bought 2. I am a ‘match it’ kind of girl so it is all about even numbers which is always a great sale for the shops. They are made of clay, so I hope that they make it home okay.
I am starting to think that the Peruvians are quite the business people. As we came out of Toby’s pottery place there was a guy standing there asking if we wanted to see how the Peruvian gold was extracted. Well we are in Peru and they are renowned for their gold so we all thought it was a marvelous idea! So we only had to walk a block to get to the ‘gold’ place. It is a pretty intense process to get 1g of pure gold out of 60kg of rock and like other countries I have been to, it sometimes explains the price of things when you see how much work actually goes into making something. Another classic example is the mosaic pieces made in Morocco all by hand. Like any other floor factory, they had a gold shop and the prices were dirt cheap. I ended up buying a ring with some of the Nazca images on it and a pair of matching earrings, both 14K gold and it cost me 40AUD. I think that is a steal, and I am thinking of Indian giving the ring as a Christmas present to Zeme when he arrives in February. One of those gifts that keep on giving!
It was time to leave Nazca. We were on the road at 11.30am with only a 30 minute drive to Necropolis Chuachilla. An ancient cemetery associated with the Nazca culture. Several of the tombs have been excavated and can be examined along with the remains of those buried, now mummified by the desert conditions. This large cemetery has an area of 2 km long by 0.5km. wide and is located 27 km southeast of the city of Nazca. It is reached by following the Pan American Highway south to Km 469.20, from there a dirt road deviates to the left about 7 km. away. Chuachilla The necropolis is one of the largest cemeteries in the different cultures that archaeologists found in the valleys of Nazca. Located in the old premises of poroma, seniority dates from 1.000 years AD, and belongs to the empire of Ica-Chincha Regional. Unfortunately, prior to the excavations and the site being made public with a caretaker, many of the tombs were robbed and an aerial view shows looter holes throughout the area.
The heat was pretty oppressive out there and there was no shade bar the shanty’s that were over the ruins that had been dug up. I tell you, you wouldn’t want to be caught out there with no water and no shade, I rekon it would have been over 36C out there. So after spending 40 minutes at the grave sites we were back in the truck for our final push to my first nights of camping at Puerto Inka on the coast of Peru. As we were driving I had to shut my window a few times as the dust and sand would get whipped up by a wind and blow it straight through the window and onto me and unfortunately Seamus. Sorry buddy. It’s that dry. Even if there was a fire to start, there is not much vegetation for it to spread anyway. I just get thirsty thinking about it. Apparently they have had the equivalent of 30 minutes rain in the last 2 years!
I have tasted my first drop of Inca Kola, which is like the Coca Cola of Peru, but it is yellow in colour and tastes like creaming soda. I actually quite like it and would be happy to give it a crack with some vodka in the next coming days. I think it would make a nice accompaniment.
The drives don’t seem to be as long as Africa and I am enjoying the slower pace which was unexpected but a pleasant surprise. We arrived early afternoon into Puerto Inca, which is a resort in the middle of nowhere facing a small bay with waves crashing (loudly) onto a grey brown beach. Even though it doesn’t sound that enticing, it is actually quite beautiful and it is nice to know we are here for 2 nights. Now was the moment of truth and it was time to erect my first tent since the winery in South Africa. I have slept in a tent after that in Ethiopia, but Gap Adventure put them up and pulled them down for us, so it was a little luxury for us there to not have to worry about that. We had to get a new tent, as Kate was sharing with Angelica before I came on the scene, so she was nice enough to let Angelica keep the tent that they had and we were to get another one. Well of course we had to get a daggy, smelly tent that hadn’t been used and I have to say they are no way as nice as the African tents. There are more pegs, more work, pole on the inside of the tent and our particular tent was missing some of the peg holds so it looked a little skuif once we had done what we could. The main problem was the outer cover, as it was touching the inner tent so once we get into damn environs the tent would have water come through. Here was okay as it is bone dry, but we have pulled out a second tent, to which we will swap the outer cover tomorrow before packing it up and in the truck. Kate has worked out that we have 60 camping days out of the 154 days that we are on tour. It sounds a lot when you think of it like that, so I will just have to get used to the fact that I am not on an Intrepid Africa tour where the tents go up in 5 minutes flat and Mark rekons by the end of tour our 15 minutes will turn into 60 seconds. Yeah well I am not sure about that, but using Jimbobs positive thinking, we can only work with what we have and I need to suck it all up!!!!
Kate had picked the left hand side of the tent, which was fine with me, as that was ‘Lisa’s side’, so I have just resumed where I left off…. Maybe I am a righty sleeper? Now I don’t have a sleeping mat, so I had to make do with what I could find on the truck till I could get to Cuzco. There were some spare blankets, just like the one I had in Africa (there I go again, but they were exactly the same) so this was to do as my base and then my sleeping bag and one smaller blanket should it get cold during the night, with my pillow all pumped up and my travel towel unpacked it was welcome back to tentworld and camping. It was surprisingly quite roomy inside the tent, so no more comparing to Africa (even though their tents are better).
The new roster has been done to add in the 3 newbies. I am in team B with Debbie, Julia and Omar. We are currently trying to come up with a team name and we are trying to get something Spanish together. I am not sure it if it something Tucan normally do giving the teams names, but everyone is now trying to think of names for team A and C as well. I told them all the story of the Arse Muffs in Africa and got a good laugh. I wonder if they get sock of my Africa overland stories? I am trying to keep it low key as there is nothing worse than someone mouthing off about previous tours and how awesome they were. I’m not going to win any new friends that way and I need to keep an open mind and make new memories and moments with my new group. I also need to welcome back ‘flapping’. Have I missed this part of overland? Maybe it may help keep my tuck shop arms under control with the flapping introduced? Yeah wishful thinking but let’s keep the positive vibe going. Dave would have been proud, team B was on washing up and the clean pots were just waiting to be flapped, so I did the Dave call ‘we need flappers here’ and people then came over to help out. I even felt like Dave when I said it. Scary!!
Firewood had been purchased during an olive stop in the afternoon. So Gray got the firewood all chopped and a nicer little fire going on the beach. There are plenty of camp chairs and a bag of ‘special’ premade fire ready marshmallows appeared. I’m not a marshmallow eater, so I used this time to go and have a shower. The facilities at the camp/hotel are amazing. Flush toilets, toilet paper and now I was going to check out the shower block. The water was tepid, so it wasn’t cold but it was some form of treated salt water. It tasted disgusting and snaffed out the possibility of washing my hair for the next 2 days. I couldn’t even get lather up with my soap, but a wash is better than nothing at all, tepid is better than cold so all in all it was an okay experience. There light didn’t work, so I was in partial darkness after I Had rigged my windup torch around the shower rail. Gee I am becoming quite the handy woman!
Early to bed for me. I sort of ‘smoke bombed’ and didn’t say goodnight as I didn’t want to be given shit I was going to bed just after 9pm, another African term, but in my defence I did read till just after 10.30pm, so not so grandma and I settled into what I hope would be a comfortable sleep with what I had. The waves crashing on the beach were more than a little loud, but if that is my only complaint, falling asleep to loud crashing waves on a beach in Peru, then I’m not doing too badly.
Reading this just makes me wish I was still sharing a tent with you on some awesome adventure B!!! Nothing will ever compare with Africa ehehe, but it does sound like you're doing some fantastic stuff. LOVE LOVE xxx
ReplyDelete