Beyond Cusco...Nasca or Nazca??

Leaving Cusco...finally!! After an interesting journey to the bus station, I managed to choose the night of one of the biggest festivals in Cusco to leave. Had to fight my way through massive crowds for the festival of Senor De Los Tremblos. El Senor is the Black Jesus who protects Cusco from the earthquakes. Pretty bizarre but they obviously love the festival as everyone in Cusco turned up, or so it seemed!

Well my first stop after Cusco was Nas_ca. No one seems to know exactly how its spelt. Even the signs on the way vary! Im sure someone knows why it varies but I dont Im afraid...sorry.

Have the joys of Cusco: Ciudad Del Mundo on the bus...twice. Turns out a guy has a job lot and wants to sell them to the tourists on the bus. Slight oversight on his part is that its a local bus and every is leaving Cusco, not sure he got his demographic quite right! Met an English guy Will on the bus, not his bus mind but thats another story.

So Nasca...two reasons for going there, the lines and the mummies in the desert, the rest of the town is dusty and dry with nothing to offer other than cheap grotty hostels. Most people dont spend a night there, and neither did we, got a flight to see the lines, went and saw the mummies (more on them later) and got the hell out.
















The lines, pay your money, get a flight in a plane that has about four buttons on the dashboard...one of which is the cigarette lighter! Well this is it, our plane, looks good huh? Actually we got shunted to another plane as they wouldnt fly without having a full passenger manifest, they say its for balance but really its just money.


So we wait around for several hours for a 5th person to turn up so they can make more money, watch the oldest video in existence then finally see the lines. Interesting, not quite as obvious or dramatic as you would expect but still awesome to think that they were made so long ago. Crisscrossing lines and trapezoidal shapes cover the whole landscape and its amazing to think that they spent so long making all these lines by hand...or rather by foot!
















Can you see it? Its a Colibri...a humming bird to you and me! Out of shot is me pressed up against the glass as the pilot does another 90 degree turn so we can get some nice pictures! Lucky none of us get motion sickness as sick bags are noticable by their absence. As are any safety features on the plane which lurches around violently on the thermals.

Land and thank whomever is smiling down on us that we made it alive, return to the hostal in the biggest car ever, Im pretty sure its bigger than the plane we were just in! Then head out into the desert to see the mummies...















Well mummies is an over statement, they are more like bundles of bones wrapped up and wearing wigs...supermodels of yesteryear, or the Rolling Stones perhaps? You have to drive out of town and basically these little bundles are arranged in small holes in the ground with little roofs to protect them from the almost non existant rain.

Back into town, just enough time to have a shower which rates as one of the best three things I did in Nasca then off to the bus stop to talk to more people and head to Arequipa...